Studies in Napoleonic statesmanship; Germany

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Brigham Young University

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STUDIES IN
NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

GERMANY

HENRY FROWDE, M.A.

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

I.ONDON, EDINBURGH

NEW YORK

\

1-3

STUDIES IN
NAPOLEONIC

STATESMANSHIP

GERMANY

BY

HERBERT A. L. FISHER, M.A.

FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD
AUTHOR OF ' THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE '

20857^

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OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1903

OXFORD

PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

BY HORACE HART, M.A.

PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

PREFACE

rPHIS book is a study in civil and administrative
history. Its object is to describe the growth,
to analyse the character, and to estimate the influence
of the Napoleonic system in Germany. Of campaigns
and battles it will say practically nothing ; of diplo-
macy only so much as will enable the reader to
understand how it was that by 1807 Napoleon had
become the master of Germany. Personal descrip-
tions will occur, for all systems are worked by men
and moulded by those who work them. But the
main purpose of the book is not to draw portraits of
persons, but to show how the Napoleonic States in
Germany were created and governed.

If Napoleon, as Mr. Gladstone held, was the greatest
administrator in history, then his administrative work
is a theme worthy of serious attention. Yet no
complete history of the civil side of the Napoleonic
Empire has yet appeared, and indeed, while so much
material still remains unpublished and unexplored, it
is unlikely that the great work will be accomplished
in this generation. Nevertheless, there seems to me
to be some value in a provisional account, however
imperfect, if only as indicating fruitful lines of re-
search, and I have begun with a volume upon
Germany, in the hope that I may be encouraged
to complete the work at some future date by further
studies of Napoleonic statesmanship in France, Italy,
Holland, and Belgium. My reason for beginning with
Germany rather than with Italy or France is partly

a3

vi PREFACE

that the material is of a more manageable bulk, and
partly that the way has been simplified by some
excellent monographs, among which I would specially
mention the names of Perthes, Rambaud, Thimme,
Goecke, and Darmstaedter. At the same time I
should not have ventured to approach the subject
of the Napoleonic system in Germany without a fair
working knowledge of the legal and administrative
changes which came over France during the Consulate
and the Empire ; and I must ask my readers to believe
that I have made myself acquainted with the essential
authorities, Locre, Thibaudeau, and FieVee, not to
speak of more recent books such as those of Perouse,
Blanc, Rocquain, Taine, and Sagnac.

A distinguished French writer has spoken of ' la
fureur de Vinedit? and I agree that the homage paid
by historical scholars to unpublished documents, just
because they are unpublished, often amounts to a
disease. Yet in the history of any modern adminis-
tration, research in archives is of high importance.
Every member of the Civil Service is, no doubt, pain-
fully conscious of the vast mass of correspondence,
of the letters and memoranda, the petitions and
inquiries, the reports and statistical tables which
accumulate in his office. Little of all this may ever
deserve to be published, but much of it may repay
the swift reader, who takes up one transaction after
another, until he becomes thoroughly acquainted not
only with the affairs themselves, but with the prin-
ciples upon which they are handled, and with the
men who handle them. Impressions derived from
such a course of study, from papers no one of which
in itself may deserve publication, may only be repre-
sented by a paragraph, a phrase, or an epithet. But
they are none the less worth having. They reproduce,

PREFACE vii

for the author at least, the very atmosphere of the
times.

The bibliographical notes appended to the chapters
will indicate to the reader the authorities which I
have personally found most useful. I have not felt
it necessary to give exhaustive references to printed
works. The Correspondance de Napoleon, with its
supplements by Brotonne and Lecestre, is naturally
the main authority, and perhaps second in importance
comes the Correspondance du roi Jerome, edited by
Baron Ducasse. A serviceable bibliography of Napo-
leonic literature has been brought out by Kircheisen :
and this, together with the excellent bibliographies
contained in Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Generate ;
Fournier, Napoleon I; and Thimme, Das Kurfursten-
thum Hannover, will put the student in possession of
all that he is likely to require. It may perhaps be
useful to remind such as may consult these biblio-
graphies, of all forms of literature the most depressing,
that in spite of the torrent of fresh -poured ink, no
one can neglect with impunity the splendid apology
of Thiers, the keen criticism of Lanfrey, or the facile
story of Bignon, which, undertaken at the recommenda-
tion of Napoleon himself, sparkles in places with the
glitter of ' things seen.'

A word may now be said as to the unpublished
sources of material utilized in this volume. The
French occupation of Hanover has been very
thoroughly treated by Thimme, who has worked
up the Hanoverian archives, but there is valuable
additional material to be found in the Archives du
Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, and some curious
details in the reports of Sir Charles Gordon in the
Foreign Office Papers in our Record Office. The very
valuable Baden Correspondence published by Erd-

viii PREFACE

mannsdorffer throws a strong light upon Napoleon's
diplomacy in Germany in 1804 and 1805, but must
be supplemented by the papers of our own diplomatic
agents which lie at the Record Office. There are few
better chronicles of the last hours of the Holy Roman
Empire than the despatches of Alexander Home,
our envoy at Ratisbon, unless it be the correspon-
dence of General Hedouville, the French agent.
The first of these authorities has not, I think, been
previously used, while the second has been singularly
neglected. Home is to be found among the papers
of the English, and Hedouville among those of the
French Foreign Office.

For the history of the Grand-Duchy of Berg the
student must go to the Archives Rationales in Paris
and to the Staatsarchiv at Diisseldorf. The material
at the Archives Nationales is extremely voluminous,
but beautifully arranged and catalogued. I have read
not all, but nearly all, that is to be found there. At
Diisseldorf the mass of papers is even greater, and the
cataloguing very rough. Much of the material, pro-
bably most of it, is a duplicate of documents trans-
mitted to Paris ; but nevertheless the archives repay
a visit, and I regret that my stay was necessarily so
short. There are a few papers concerning the grand-
duchy at the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, but
they are of slight importance.

The Kingdom of Westphalia, far richer in printed
authorities than the Grand-Duchy of Berg, is apparently
less rich in unpublished material. There is nothing at
the Archives Nationales, and copious selections from
the most valuable correspondence of Reinhard, which
are preserved at the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres,
have been printed in the Revue Historique by Baron
Ducasse. Little or nothing can be found at the

PREFACE ix

Landesbibliothek at Cassel, save some rare books
and pamphlets. The archives of Marburg contain
a great deal of interesting local material, illus-
trating the working of French administration in
Southern Hesse, but unfortunately the accounts of
the Royal Westphalian Treasury, which I was par-
ticularly anxious to see, have been removed to Berlin,
where are also to be found the reports of the Prussian
envoy, von Kiister. The loss of Kuster may be
lightly borne, for his correspondence has been more
than once used, and shows him to have been a dull
fellow. But it would be worth while to check the
picturesque statements of the Secret History of West-
phalia and similar works by reference to the royal
accounts.

For the history of Northern Germany the correspon-
dence of Davout is of primary importance. Most
but not all of it has been printed by Mazade, and it is
quite essential to have recourse to the cartons A. F.
iv. 1654-7 in the Archives Rationales, containing
as they do, not merely the correspondence of Davout
himself, but also all the letters and memoranda for-
warded through Davout to Napoleon. Of these en-
closures the most interesting are the letters of Rapp
and Poniatowsky. The Foreign Office and Colonial
Office papers relating to Heligoland throw some
interesting light on the continental blockade, and
should be utilized by all who wish to write upon that
subject.

For the Grand-Duchy of Frankfort I have been
content to build upon the excellent monograph of
Darmstaedter, who has used the archives of Frank-
fort and Wiesbaden to excellent effect. I have,
however, supplemented his results by the corre-
spondence of He'douville, Bacher, and Dalberg,

x PREFACE

which is contained in the Archives du Ministere des
Affaires Etrangeres.

The history of the four Rhenish departments has
still to be written, and I trust that M. Levy-Schneider,
the learned biographer of Jean Bon St. Andre, may
see his way to write it. Assuredly there must be
valuable material at Coblenz, some of which has
probably found its way into local periodicals, to which
I have been unable to obtain access. But a voyage
of discovery to Coblenz was beyond me ; and my
chapter upon the subject adds nothing, save for
some gleanings from the Archives Nationales, to what
has been common knowledge to students.

My thanks are due to the French Minister of
Foreign Affairs, who generously permitted me to
consult the archives of the French Foreign Office,
and to the numerous archivists, French and German,
whose kindly help and unfailing courtesy have left
a deep impression upon me. It is also a great
pleasure to acknowledge the ever-ready assistance
which has been given me by Mr. Hubert Hall, of
the Record Office. To Mr. Calderon, of the British
Museum, I owe some information gleaned from the
principal Polish authority upon the Grand-Duchy of
Warsaw. In conclusion, I wish especially to express
my gratitude to Professor York Powell, a Delegate
of the Clarendon Press, for the many valuable sug-
gestions which he has made while the sheets were
passing through the press. It is not by any means
my first obligation to the Regius Professor, and I
intend that it shall not be my last. Men so learned
and generous as he must expect, like the Duke of
Wellington, to be 6 much exposed to authors.'

H. A. L. F.

April, 1903.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

Germany and France 1

CHAPTER II.

Bonaparte and the First German Revolution ... 26

I. Campo-Formio and Rastadt ..... 26

II. Luneville and the Act of Mediation . ... .38

CHAPTER III.
Hanover . . . . . . . 48

CHAPTER IV.
The Conspiracy and the Raids ...... 67

CHAPTER V.
The Confederation of the Rhine 93

CHAPTER VI.
The Fall of Prussia . . . . . . . .124

CHAPTER VII.
Tilsit and the Settlement of North Germany . .143

CHAPTER VIII.
The Constitution and the Concordat . . . .163

CHAPTER IX.
The Foundation of the Grand-Duchy of Berg . . 173

CHAPTER X.
Problems of Government in Berg 196

CONTENTS
CHAPTER XL

PAGE

The Establishment of the Westphalian Kingdom . . 224

CHAPTER XII.
Westphalian Problems ....... 256

CHAPTER XIII.
The Ruin of Westphalia ....... 288

CHAPTER XIV.
The Grand-Duchy of Frankfort . . . . .312

CHAPTER XV.
The Hanseatic Towns ....... 333

CHAPTER XVI.
The Rhine Departments ....... 350

CHAPTER XVII.
Conclusions .......... 374

INDEX 385

MAPS

The Grand-Duchy of Berg ..... 174

The Kingdom of Westphalia . . . . . 224

The Grand-Duchy of Frankfort . . . . .312
The Rhine and Hanseatic Departments .... 334

ERRATA

P. 20, note, 1. i , for Geschechte read Geschichte

P. 30, 1. 26, for December 17 read November 17

P. 140, 1. 17, for Frederick William read William Frederick

Fisher's Napoleonic Statesmanship

CHAPTER I

GERMANY AND FRANCE

e L'Allemand est une creature qui boit plus qu'elle ne peut porter, un
tonneau qui contient plus qu'il ne parait, et un homme qui sait plus
qu'il ne dit : j'y ajoute, un homme d'honneur et de probiteV

Oxenstierna, Pensees diverses.

FEW problems are more interesting to the sociologist than
the mutual interaction of different civilizations. .What are
the conditions which assist fusion, what are the subtle causes
that arrest it, what historical medium acts as a conductor, what
medium again is non-conducting, what elements of national
genius, taste, and character are capable of exportation, what
incapable, and why some characteristics are more easily assimi-
lated or imitated than others, these and a host of other
subsidiary questions will always arise when conquest, migration,
or mere juxtaposition places two different races in a position
where it is impossible for either to remain unaffected by the
characteristics and ideals of the other. The collision between
France and Germany during the revolutionary and Napoleonic
age was far more than a shock of arms. It involved an
attempt on the part of France to complete and extend the
domination of her sentiment and her logic, of her lightest
fashions and deepest thoughts, and above all of her most solid
contrivances in the realm of politics. In this process the
political map of Germany was transfigured, and the old ideas
that had ruled the small German principalities went suddenly,
painfully, and shamefully bankrupt. A new conception of the
State was worked out in practical detail with the aid of Germans
upon German soil. It was no mere superficial affair, for every
cottage knew and felt the change, which indeed entered into the
most intimate social relations, and included new laws touching
divorce, inheritance, the civil marriage, the labour service, the
right to take up a trade or handicraft. But this experiment,

FISHER B

2 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

profound and important though it was, was carried out under
conditions which ensured failure, though the effects of it,
negative and positive, have been far reaching. The most
adverse of these conditions was the fact that the newly formed
States were caught up into the whirl of the Napoleonic wars.

Of the two countries with which we are concerned, one was
humble and docile, while the other was proud and imperious.
One already knew much of what the other had to teach, and
had long looked upon her as spiritual mistress and guide, while
the other had never realized that the pupil of so many generations
had achieved intellectual manhood and was already feeling the
charm and the spell of a new discipline. While Germany knew
France and admired her, France was alike ignorant and con-
temptuous of Germany. ' Where are you going ? ' says an
imaginary traveller in Baron Risbeck's Travels. ' To Germany.'
' To that horrid country ? I have just been through it, but in
truth there is nothing there which merits attention V

The really remarkable thing in Germany escaped all French
observers until the Revolution drove Charles de Villers, and
the Empire drove Madame de Stael, to seek a refuge beyond
the Rhine. It was the growing emancipation of the country
from the intellectual domination of France. In the last quarter
of the eighteenth century a national literature sprang up in
Germany, deriving its inspiration, so far as that inspiration
was derived at all, from the Elizabethan drama or the poets
of ancient Greece, or from the literatures of primitive or
mediaeval times.

'Scarcely,' wrote Schiller in 1794, 'has the cold fever of
Gallomania left us, when a still hotter fever of Graecomania
breaks out.' But the renascence of Hellenism — though its like
had not been experienced since the fifteenth century diffused
Greek knowledge among the scholars of the West — was merely
one symptom out of many of a changed attitude towards
literature and art. Among the debts the world owes to
Rousseau the greatest perhaps is his protest against the com-
plicated artifice of civilized life. But the conventions of litera-
ture were seen to be as complicated and as arbitrary as the
conventions of politics, and in the light of Rousseau's teaching
1 Risbeck, Voyages en Allemagne, i. 5, and Lang, Memoiren, i. 248.

GERMANY AND FRANCE 3

the classical tradition of French literature, with its delight in
logical coherence, its passion for abstractions, its pure colourless
and attenuated vocabulary, its strict regard for the dramatic
unities, and its time-honoured conventions of rhythm and
rhyme, appeared to be contrary to 6 nature , and therefore to
be condemned. Lessing exposed the defects of the French
drama and attempted to provide a German substitute. Herder
argued that there was an essential difference between the imita-
tion of Greek and Latin models, since the Greeks represented
the natural and common element in civilization and could there-
fore be imitated with profit, while the Latin races, representing
a specialized form of culture only appropriate to their own
peculiar racial temperament, could not be copied without
danger. Whatever may be thought of this particular argu-
ment, it was a sound instinct which led Herder to protest
against the servile imitation of French models. In the realm
of literature Germany had already learnt every lesson from
France that she was capable of assimilating. She was now
beginning to discover a soul of her own.

Of this profound movement France was almost wholly ignorant.
A young German philologist who was in Paris in 1802 wrote
that nobody knew Schiller, that a French friend who had been
taking German lessons for seven years cited Hagedorn, Zachariae,
and Gellert as the best German writers, and that the booksellers
only remembered to have heard of some translations of a
4 Monsieur Scheet,' who upon examination turned out to be
Goethe 1. The statement must no doubt be taken with qualifi-
cations, but in the main the impression conveyed by it is correct.
A few bad translations — and the translations from the German
into French made during the eighteenth century are said by
those who have examined them to be uniformly bad — can never
popularize a foreign literature, and with the single exception
of Werther, and possibly also of Schiller's Robbers, which was
adapted for the French stage and acted in Paris in 1792 and
1793, no work of German literature achieved anything like
popularity in France. Of more serious books Lessing's Drama-
turgy (translated in 1785) alone attracted some notice, for
it brought principles of aesthetic criticism to bear upon
1 J. F. Reichardt; Vertraute Briefe aus Paris.
b2

4 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

French dramatic art. But that Germany either possessed or
might possess a literature of her own was an idea which had
never entered the French mind during the Ancien Regime, and
the Empire of Napoleon had already been founded before a
little band of writers — Stapfer, de Villers, de Gerando, Garat,
and Malouet — attempted in the Archives Litteraires de V Europe
to give to France a true idea of the position of German poetry
and German thought in the world of intellect 1.

If it was a rare thing for a Frenchman to have read a trans-
lation from a German work, the Frenchman who understood the
German language was a still more singular phenomenon. Vol-
taire's countrymen regarded the tongue of Goethe as a barbarous
and difficult patois which the polite society of Europe, Germany
included, had agreed to neglect ; nor could it be forgotten that
Leibnitz, though praising the virtues of German as a medium
for philosophical writing, had elected to publish his most im-
portant compositions in French, and that Frederick the Great
had openly expressed his contempt for the language and litera-
ture of his own country.

But if the language of Goethe was almost unknown in France,
there can have been few educated Germans, from the King on
his throne to the merchant at his desk, unacquainted with
French. French was the language of diplomacy and Court
society ; it was often the medium of erudite intercourse ; it was
the key to the most accessible polite literature in the world.
When the Duke of Brunswick, who was a Prussian field-marshal,
wrote to the King of Prussia, he wrote in French. At Herr
Kiekhover's house, a centre of musical society at Hamburg,
the conversation, says Spohr, was almost entirely in French 2.
' I was very much surprised,' said the French professor at the
Karlsruhe Lycee in 1807, 6 to hear at Meschede (in Westphalia)
a man in the costume of an inhabitant of the country cite with
accuracy Joinville, Brantome, de Thou, and all our classics. He
was a manufacturer of the neighbourhood 3.' Another traveller
says : ' I doubt whether there are in France many towns whose

1 Virgile Rossel, Histoire des relations litteraires de la France et de V Alle-
magne ; Siipfle, Geschichte des deutschen Kultureinflusses auf Frankreich.

2 Spohr, Autobiography (Engl, tr.), 17.
8 Lettres sur la Westphalie, 1809.

GERMANY AND FRANCE 5

libraries are furnished with German journals. In the first
German town I visited I found the journals of all countries1.
An official report prepared for the French Emperor in 1810
offers still more striking testimony to the capacity of Germans
for reading foreign tongues and to the diffusion of reading
habits among them 2. ' There is scarcely an educated German,"
it says, ' who cannot read French, Italian, and English, as well
as Latin. ' And it may be added that in the field of pedagogy
Rousseau had no disciples so strenuous, so unquestioning, and
so devoid of humour as the Germans 3.

The intellectual hegemony of France was indeed so clearly
marked as to excite special investigation. In 1788 the Academy
of Berlin proposed for competition the question, ' What is it that
has made the French tongue universal?' and Rivarol gained
the prize by dwelling pardonably upon the intrinsic merits of
the language over which he exercised so delicate a mastery.
But in truth many historical causes quite unconnected with
philology had contributed to the diffusion of French : the
dazzling magnificence of the Court of Louis XIV, which was
specially impressive to the German princes who were just
emerging from the havoc of the Thirty Years"' War ; the Revoca-
tion of the Edict of Nantes, which, by dispersing the Huguenots
over Europe, provided every considerable city with needy and
competent teachers of the French language ; the wars of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, during which thousands
of French deserters found a home in Germany ; but above all
the brilliance of the French classics, the elegance and wit of
their lighter literature, and the attractive urbanity of French
life and conversation.

The contrast between German knowledge of France and
French ignorance of Germany is summed up thus by one of
the few Frenchmen of the Revolutionary period who knew
what Germany was like, Charles de Villers. • Germany,' he

1 Virgile Rossel, Histoire des relations litteraires de la France et de
VAllemagne, 153-4.

2 Report of Cuvier and Noel, extracts of which are published in
Gutsmuth's Neue Bibliothek fur Padagogik, 1812, 39 ff.

8 Bernard Christophe Faust a t Assemblee Nationale sur un vetement libre,
uniforme et national a V usage des enfans. Aux depens de l'auteur. 1792.
Bueckeburg en Westphalie.

6 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

says, 'differs from France so profoundly that the contrast is
hard to explain and the country difficult to know well. For
us Frenchmen it is like the East, where everything is at first
strange and unintelligible alike in thought and in expression.
The Germans know us better in general than we know them.
Of all Europeans they are those who are the best at observing
and studying foreign peoples and who do most justice to them.
We often see them forcing themselves to adopt our manner of
speech, our idiom, to enter into our views ; in a word, they will
make themselves almost Frenchmen in order to facilitate our
intercourse with them V

This docile, laborious, and highly educated people was con-
demned to a kind of political paralysis. While in the realms
of speculation, knowledge, and feeling Germany was during the
seventies, eighties, and nineties achieving results which no other
European nation could rival, her political system was so un-
reasonable, inconvenient, and cumbrous as to be destructive of
the intelligent handling of public affairs. Nominally an Empire,
Germany was in reality a federation of States, and, as Montes-
quieu pointed out, a very bad kind of federation. The units
of which it was composed were unequal in size, various in
constitution, and far too untrammelled in their political action.
They could make war upon their own account, and hire out
their armies to foreign powers without imperial consent. The
map of Germany was a mosaic, especially in the centre, in
Swabia, along the banks of the Upper Rhine, and in Westphalia,
and the arbitrary intermixture of States was fatal to any effective
administration of them. Nor were the imperial institutions
capable of directing the multifarious atoms which composed
the Germanic body. The Diet of Ratisbon was a mere con-
gress of diplomatic agents who did not act, but did little more
than register decisions separately taken by the States from
which they were severally accredited. It was composed of three
Colleges — the Electoral College which chose the Emperor, the
College of Princes, and the College of Free Towns. A majority
of two Colleges was required for a resolution or conclusum of
the Diet. The preponderant influence belonged to the princes,

1 Coup d'ceil sur les universites et le mode d 'instruction publique de VAlle-
magne protestante. Cassel, 1808.

GERMANY AND FRANCE 7

and among the princes to a small number of families, most
of whom were Electoral. But so little interest was taken in
the affairs of the body that absenteeism was rife. Thus in 1788
of the hundred voters inscribed in the College of Princes
fourteen only came to Ratisbon, while of the fifty-one free
towns, eight alone were represented.

The Circles of the Empire were doubtless of value in the
sixteenth century. But their political organization, which had
never been complete, had almost everywhere fallen entirely into
desuetude. The Emperor was in reality only the honorary
president of the confederation. His prerogatives had been
whittled away by a series of imperial capitulations, the first of
which was drawn up before the election of Charles V. He
convoked the Diet, ratified its recesses, gave investiture of fiefs,
received the homage of imperial towns, and had the right to
send a commissioner to be present at episcopal elections. But
an official document of 1764 stated his imperial revenue to
amount to 13,884 florins and 32 kreuzers. The imperial army
could not be collected without the order of the Diet of the
Empire, and could not march without the consent of the diets
of the Circles. The two courts instituted to judge cases
reserved for the Emperor, that is to say, the imperial Chamber
at Wetzlar and the Aulic Court at Vienna, were proverbial
for their delays, and they had no means of enforcing their
decisions against a prominent prince who chose to defy them.

Nor was this federation by any means a federation of equals.
There were three hundred and sixty States in the Empire, repre-
senting every grade in the feudal hierarchy from the knight
to the Emperor, and a day's journey might take a traveller
through a free city, through the territory of a sovereign abbot,
through a village owned by an imperial knight, through the
possessions of a landgrave, a duke, a prince, and a king 1.

This political diversity would not necessarily have been
injurious, though it would always have been inconvenient, if
the multitudinous States of Germany had been animated by
a common feeling of nationality. But such a feeling, though
dimly present to some natures, had no weight in the counsels
of German cabinets. The Reformation and the wars of religion
1 Himly, Formation territoriale de l' Europe, 286 if.

8 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

which proceeded from it, had left scars and divided memories
in the least rancorous of peoples. The Protestants had enlisted
Swedes and French, and the Catholic escutcheon was darkly
stained by the brutalities of Spaniards and Croats. In the
eighteenth century the savagery was diminished but the egoism
remained. Every German Court pursued its own advantage
regardless of the welfare of the Empire. Austria ceded Lorraine
to France that the Hapsburgs might be strengthened in Italy,
steadily plotted the partition of Bavaria, and negotiated for the
cession of Luxemburg. Prussia seized Silesia in 1740, and with
Saxony and Bavaria entered into a scheme for the partition
of the Austrian dominions. The rivalry of the two leading
German powers led to foreign intervention, and English, French,
and Russians joined in the long quarrel which owed its origin
to the greed of 1740 and was only terminated by the exhaustion
of 1763. The first partition of Poland, nine years later, was
the crowning triumph of politic fraud and greed unabashed.

With such examples before them it is small wonder if the
secondary German princes eagerly sought to obtain an advance
in dignity, to swell their armies, to fill their coffers, and to
expand their frontiers at the expense of their weaker neighbours.
The clerical principalities seemed marked out for the spoiler,
and in the seventies and eighties men were already talking of
secularization as an easy means of gratifying the lay appetite.
' The only desire which the duke clearly expressed to me,' says
Mirabeau of Ferdinand of Brunswick in 1786, * is the separation
of the Electorate of Hanover from the English monarchy and
the secularization of certain States which may one day con-
tribute an equivalent for Saxony1.' The traffic in souls and
square miles was no invention of Napoleon. All through the
eighteenth century it entered into the calculations of the German
princes.

ii

Every traveller in Germany remarked the contrast between
the Catholic and Protestant territories of the Empire. The
difference, says Risbeck, is like the difference between France

1 Cf. Sorel, V Europe et la Revolution Francaise, i. 460.

GERMANY AND FRANCE 9

and Spain *. In one quarter you found ignorance, squalor,
degrading superstition, in the other educational zeal, reading
habits widely diffused, and free thinking. While Protestant
Saxony was thriving and intelligent, in Catholic Bavaria ' super-
stition and poverty blended with distress , were ' visible in every
village and almost in every countenance V In Protestant Ger-
many crime was extraordinarily rare, but nowhere were gallows
and wheels so much in requisition as in Bavaria, and the astonish-
ing proportion which burglary bore to other forms of crime in
that country was attributed to the badness of the schools and
the habits of beggary encouraged by the Roman Church 3.

Whereas the Protestant Universities were flourishing, the
Catholic Universities were in the lowest state of obscurantism
and decay. When Soemmering, an able young anatomist, wrote
a dissertation upon negroes for the University of Mainz, in
which he argued that the negro was structurally more akin to the
ape than to the white man, he was reprimanded at the instance
of the Chapter of Cologne, which conserved the relics of the
three Kings of the East, and was jealous of the honour of King
Melchior4. Sailer, one of the few German Catholics of real
spiritual power in the later half of the century, was expelled from
his professorial chair at Dillingen, because it was only by expelling
him that the Elector of Bavaria could obtain a loan from the
Obwexer bank, which was then dominated by Jesuit influence 5.

Nevertheless during the later half of the century even the
Catholic Church in Germany gradually became affected by
the liberating influences of the time. New ideas arose respect-
ing ecclesiastical organization, and a change began to come
over the thought and spirit of many Catholics.

The eighteenth century has been called the age of enlightened
despotism, and every German prince, whether enlightened or
barbaric, was striving to acquire despotic power in his own
dominions. In this enterprise the Catholic princes, less for-

1 Voyages en Allemagne, i. 165 ; Mirabeau, Royaume de Prusse, i. 34.

2 Wraxall, Memoirs of the Courts of Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw, and Vienna
in the years 1777-9, ii. 199.

8 Durchfluge durch Deutschland, die Niederlande und Frankreich} vii.
156, 174 ; Mirabeau, iii. 205.
4 Mirabeau, i. 224.
6 Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, art. Sailer.

10 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

tunate than their Protestant neighbours, were brought into
necessary conflict with the independent power of the Catholic
Church. The power of the Pope directly challenged their
territorial sovereignty. So long as this power lasted no Catholic
prince in Germany was, or could be, master in his own house.

To the unuttered thoughts and desires of dissatisfied Catholics
there came in 1763 a startling response in a work printed at
Frankfort under the title Iusti Febronii de statu Ecclesiae et le-
gitima potestate Romani pontificis liber singularis ad reunien-
dos dissidentes in religione Christiana compositus. This book,
first published in Latin, but speedily translated into German,
was a direct attack upon the monarchical organization of the
Roman Church. It argued that the Pope was subject to
general councils : that he possessed no spiritual titles superior
to those of the bishops. It pleaded for the conciliar govern-
ment of the Church, and urged that if the Pope refused to
summon general councils, national councils should meet after
the French model, and that the Catholic princes and bishops
should agree to stand together and to disregard any papal
censures which might be provoked by their action.

Febronius achieved the kind of success which rewards the
man who puts into formal shape a large inarticulate mass
of feeling. His treatise became the textbook at Vienna ;
a University was created at Bonn to expound his doctrine ;
and there were few teachers of canon law in the Catholic
Universities of Germany who did not teach some form of
Febronianism. In Austria Joseph II carried out the pre-
cepts to the letter, submitting monks and bishops to State
control, and even cherishing the thought of a complete separa-
tion from Rome. Nor was ' Josephism ' confined to the Haps-
burg dominions. The Archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, Treves, and
Salzburg met together at Ems in 1786 and drew up a declara-
tion— the famous Ems Punktation — in which, while conceding
to the Pope all the privileges which he could be proved to have
exercised in the first centuries of Christianity, they denied
all the claims based upon the spurious Isidorian decretals. No
diocesans were to have recourse to Rome, no papal exemptions
were to be permitted, monasteries were to be withdrawn from
foreign superiors, and no papal bulls were to be regarded as

GERMANY AND FRANCE 11

binding until they had received the sanction of the bishop
to whose diocese they were directed. The attempt to establish
a national Catholic Church in Germany failed, but in few
countries was there less of Ultramontanism, and it is doubtful
whether the breach between the French Revolution and the
Papacy sensibly affected the prestige of France among German
Catholics \

The Roman Catholic system does not admit of free dogmatic
criticism, and the German Catholics were but rarely tempted
into intellectual indiscretions. Here and there a German
bishop or canon would finger Voltaire and place a bust of
Rousseau in his study, but the scepticism which was so common
among the French abb£s was rarely to be found. Nevertheless
a more charitable and tolerant spirit gradually spread among
the educated clergy. Works of Protestant theology began
to find their way into Catholic libraries and to influence
Catholic thought and speech 2 ; in the See of Salzburg the sing-
ing of German hymns and the use of the German Bible were
encouraged. In Wiirzburg and in Mainz Catholic prelates
improved the elementary schools, and Karl Joseph von
Erthal, Archbishop of Mainz, actually abolished some monas-
teries, applied their revenues to the University, and appointed
Protestant professors to University chairs. The newer Catho-
licism was represented by an order of Joseph II of Austria, who
directed that young clergymen should no longer be trained
* in dogmatic subtleties and scholastic nonsense,'* but should
rather be impressed with the points of agreement between
the Roman Catholic and the other Christian Churches.

The two Protestant Churches of Germany were affected in
a far higher degree by the double influence of Erastianism and
rationalism. From the very first the Lutheran Church had
been made a department of the State, and to this day it has
never overcome the paralysing effects of this association. In

1 Eilers, Meine Wanderung durch's Leben, i. 73 ; Hettner, Geschichte der
deutschen Litteratur, ii. 306-13.

2 Thus under the enlightened rule of Franz Ludwig von Erthal of
Wiirzburg (1779-95), Catholic clergy were accused of free thinking,
plain speaking, and converse with Protestants (Bedenken in Hinsicht des
Zustandes der Religion und Geistlichkeit , 1792 ; quoted by Schmid, Geschichte
der katholischen Kirche in Deutschland, 86).

12 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

the eighteenth century, when despotism was in fashion, the
servility of the Lutheran clergy was a byword l. There was
no act of authority which they were not prepared to applaud,
and no adulation with which they would not bespatter a noble
or a prince. The most popular preacher in Hanover, Consis-
torialrath Uhle, openly in the pulpit compared the Duke of
Cambridge to the Son of God, who had come to redeem the
sins of his people, and the congregation was not shocked 2.

Few passages in history are more difficult to explain than the
sudden loss of spiritual force which befell the Lutheran Church
after the death of its founder. An age of intense passion and
inner conflict was succeeded by a period of the most arid
theological controversy. A form of orthodoxy was developed
hardly less strict than that from which the north of Germany
had only just emancipated itself, and, moreover, utterly deficient
in all those suggestions and appeals to the imagination that
abound in the Roman system. There was little enough either of
devotion or large-mindedness in the rule of the Lutheran pedants
of the seventeenth century, and devotional natures sought refuge
in various forms of pietistic exercise which lay outside the horizon
of official worship. But no organization can long resist the
insidious influence of the intellectual atmosphere which encom-
passes it, and the vigorous blast of rationalism which blew
through the later half of the eighteenth century made rents in
the stout old Lutheran fortress. The herald and the prophet
of the new movement, Johann Semler, occupied the chair of
theology at Halle from 1754-91. His piety, his elevation of
character, his industry, his intellectual fearlessness combined
with exceptional longevity to give him a commanding influence
over theological studies in Germany. Thoroughly versed in
Locke and the literature of English Deism, Semler applied
himself to freeing religion from its dogmatic trammels. In his
view theology was the product not of religion but of the
Church, and being framed to meet transitory and local needs it
possessed merely a transitory and local value. Religion was
essential, personal, and moral, and implied the full and har-
monious development of individual character. Every man

1 Eilers, Meine Wanderung dutch's Leben, 1856, i. 25.

2 Hannover wie es war, ist, und werden wird, 1804, 34.

GERMANY AND FRANCE 13

must have his own private religion, and private religions
could only possess that measure of common agreement which
subsisted between the characters of men. The appeal to the
Apostolic Church was absurd because it could be historically
shown that the Apostolic Church was full of the errors, the
superstitions, and the crudities of the time. Nor could a more
certain criterion of religious truth be found in Sacred Writ
itself, for this too was composed under historical conditions,
and while some of its teaching was of universal application,
other parts of it were tempered to long-vanished Hebraic
readers and to long-vanished Hebraic times1.

This free spirit of inquiry, this search for the essence of re-
ligion, this application of scientific historical canons to Biblical
studies spread like fire through Northern Germany. Mirabeau
remarked in 1786 that almost all the Prussian clergy were
infected. ' Already,' he writes, ' they openly proclaim that the
Old Testament is a mass of fables mingled with the history of
the Jewish people, which has no obligatory force for us ; that
the Apostles were not inspired, at least in details, and that
they might easily have been deceived ; that Jesus Christ was
a prophet, a man sent by God to preach a new religion and
to seal it with his blood, but not a universal redeemer who has
paid all the debts of the human race2.' A superintendent-
general, issuing a direction to his subordinate clergy in 1781,
remarked that the theologians of the new school avoided
mentioning the name of Jesus in their sermons. He admitted
that the common 'talk about the Lamb, the blood and the wounds '
was ' phantasy,' but nevertheless the clergy were wrong in going
to the opposite extreme. They should remember the virtues of
this ' excellent man (vortrefflicher Mann), and seek to awake on
every opportunity a feeling of love and gratitude for them V
In 1800 it was reported that religion was dead, and that ' it is
no longer the fashion to be a Christian V Nowhere was there

1 Hettner, Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur im achtzehnten Jahrhundert,
ii. 286-97.

2 Mirabeau, i. 232.

3 Eilers, Meine Wanderung durcKs Leben, i. 81, and cf. Philippson,
Geschichte des preussischen Staatswesens, i. 37.

* Eilers, i. 72, 75.

14 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

a greater abundance of natural piety, of simple domestic religion,
than in Germany. But much of it was not enrolled in any of
the great ecclesiastical regiments, and the 'drum ecclesiastic,"
whether beaten by a Lutheran pastor or a Catholic bishop
about the year 1800, would have had no power to thrill a single
soul or to lead a single body into uncomfortable places. But
in truth neither pastor nor bishop was cast in the heroic
mould.

Such reflections may seem superfluous. But it is well to
understand from the outset, that a force which in a nation
largely composed of peasants may be often expected to inflame
passions and to shape events, was in Germany singularly
feeble. The pastors and priests of Germany had long been
regarded as the spiritual police of the State. Schooled in
obedience themselves, it was their duty to enforce the same
discipline of obedience upon their flocks. State ordinances were
read from the Prussian pulpits, and some of the men who read
them were destined within a few years to give out from the
same place the bulletins of Napoleon's armies. ' An insurrec-
tion of the cures'' was impossible in Germany, nor did the
Churches provide any tribunes of the people. Politics were the
affair of the prince whose will and intelligence were guided by
God — a theory as convenient to King Jerome of Westphalia
as it had been to the Landgraves of Hesse-Cassel or the Kings
of Prussia.

in

These political and intellectual conditions produced a spirit
wholly unfavourable to the development of energetic character.
The Sturm und Drang period of German history has indeed
been not infrequently compared with the French Revolution.
There was the same upheaval and effervescence of thought, the
same glorification of nature, the same removal of traditional
restraint, the same prodigal sentimentality in both movements.
But there was a profound difference. The French enthusiasts
created a new order of society ; for the German it was sufficient
to experience the vicarious violence of the stage. The one
movement became fiercely practical ; the other was merely an

GERMANY AND FRANCE 15

emotional fashion, which small men cherished and great men
outgrew. When the fumes of this excitement had evaporated,
Germany resumed her mood of bland and enlightened curiosity.
Gustav Freytag has acutely observed that no German writers
of the period knew how to depict a real man of action.
Everywhere the speculative self-questioning temper clouds the
will of their heroes. And in real life there was little to evoke
and everything to impede the growth of practical enterprise.
Commerce and manufacture were as yet too insignificant in
volume to exercise a profound influence on national character.
The age of mediaeval maritime enterprise had passed, that of
modern colonial adventure had not begun. War is sometimes
a useful school of practical energy, and the wars of Frederick
the Great made Prussia. But there can be no worse influence
in a State than unintelligent militarism, and the militarism of
the German States was unintelligent, oppressive, and all-per-
vading. In those days the rules of war were formal, and the
men pieces of a machine of whom little else was demanded save
physical precision. There was scant occasion for brain or
initiative when battles were decided by the push of bayonet
or the impact of cavalry. There was little patriotic enthusiasm
when soldiers of fortune passed from service to service, when
choice recruits were kidnapped from neighbouring principalities
and whole regiments hired out to the highest bidder. The
army was one of the properties of despotism, together with the
mistresses, and the kennels, and the well-filled stables. Only
in Prussia had an army served a serious purpose, and Jena was
to show that the military system of the great Frederick was
as rotten and obsolete as the useless pomp of regiments that
decorated the processions of an Elector of Mainz or a Margrave
of Baden.

The reaction of all this militarism upon civil life was very
serious, and it cannot be described with greater force than in
the words of a remarkable book which appeared in 1759, ' The
Master and the Servant V by Friedrich Karl von Moser, whose
life had been spent in the civil service of Hesse-Homburg and
Hesse-Darmstadt. 'The despotism of several of our German
masters,1 he writes, ' their harsh treatment of their subjects, the
1 Der Herr und der Diener, 45 ff.

16 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

frequency with which they violate the most sacred promises
and the compacts which they have made with their Estates,
their ignorance and wilful neglect of duty, their exaggeration
of prerogatives reasonable and inviolable in themselves, for
these, together with many other signs of evil times, we have
mainly to thank the military method of government.1 And
then the writer introduces us to the prince who having spent
his youth in the camp succeeds to his fathers throne. He
expects the same blind unquestioning obedience of his servants
as the officer exacts from his men in the trenches. He plagues
the treasury and the country with a thousand demands ; he
will not be denied or contradicted, and looks upon all with
whom he has to do as his enemies. In time the despotic
temper of the master communicates itself to all departments
of the State. As the prince bullies and hectors his ministers
so the minister bullies and hectors his inferiors, and the
government, which should be all harmony and co-operation,
becomes like a regiment in which each rank despises the rank
below it.

Militarism, however, was not the only poison at work. It is
indeed an error (refuted by the whole course of Greek history)
to suppose that large and serious political issues cannot arise
in small States, but when a system of small States is combined
with a system of social privilege the cumulative effect is apt
to be disastrous to political perspective. The petty cabals and
the trivial occupations which consumed the energies of many
a small German Court ; the ceremony, the red tape, the aristo-
cratic exclusiveness, the pestilential atmosphere of spite and
selfishness, of vice and ignorance, have been depicted in many
a caustic and diverting page 1. The plethora of useless offices,
everywhere a blot on German administration, was most apparent
in the small State. ' A little territory,' writes K. von Moser,
'composed of a small town and four or five villages has
a Chancery, a Consistory, a Treasury, a Court Marshal's office,

1 The lively Wilhelmina of Prussia has cleverly satirized the loutish
and spiteful courtiers of Baireuth who derived their amusement from the
bottle and their instruction from the stable and the cow-house. The
picture of the Court of Oetting-Oetting in Lang's Memoiren is almost equally
mordant.

GERMANY AND FRANCE 17

a Forest department, a Board of Works ; and a case arose
within my knowledge where five decrees were issued from
the Treasury to mend some broken tiles on the castle roof.
A word spoken to a builder would have been quite as effi-
cacious V

In the larger States there was more movement, and Prussia
at least offered a career of public service not inferior in oppor-
tunities, as Stein was destined to show, to that of an intendancy
or prefectship in France. Everywhere, however, initiative was
lamed by the excess of central control, by the absence of
fortifying external criticism, by the habit of referring all
administrative questions to Colleges and Boards, by the vice
of inordinate writing, and by the fact that the main avenue
to the administrative career lay through the study and practice
of the law. The effect of these interconnected causes may
easily be imagined. Whenever an administrative problem
offered itself, the first impulse of the administrator was to
consider it upon its legal side, to search for precedents, to
consult colleagues, to refer to a higher authority. The slow-
ness and timidity of German administrators became as proverbial
as the delays of the German law courts ; and it is worth remark-
ing that the only minister gifted with comprehensive vision
who appeared in Southern Germany during the later half of
the century was sprung from a Savoyard family and educated
on French lines in a French school 2.

While the movement of philosophical opinion was untram-
melled, the press was regarded with dislike and controlled with
strictness. There was not a State in Germany but was prepared
to punish the newspaper that printed unpleasing news or in-
dulged in inconvenient political comment. A writer in the
Gazette of Erlangen expressed during the Seven Years' War
some sympathy for Austria. The King of Prussia ordered

1 Der Herr und der Biener, 324.

2 The popular prejudice against First Ministers was as strong in Germany
as in England (Moser, Der Herr und der JDiener, 214). The same author
says that phlegm is the quality most generally prized in a minister (ibid.
246). A. W. Rehburg complains that the Prussian method sets 'half
the inhabitants of a country protocolling ' (Ueber die Staatsverwaltung
deutscher Lander und die Dienerschaft des Regenten. Hanover, 1807).

FISHER C

18 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

a colonel to give him five and twenty strokes and to require
a receipt1. When a paper appeared in Wiirtemberg which
published news which, though true, was distasteful to Austria,
the government of Vienna at once remonstrated with the Court
of Stuttgart, and forbad the imperial post to distribute the
offending organ2. The result was that the newspapers were
few in number, poor in matter, and restricted in circulation.
Saxony lived upon one political newspaper, and that an official
organ. The Diarium, founded in 1703, sufficed for Vienna ; and
in Berlin, where, as Lessing remarked in 1763, freedom of speech
meant only freedom to scatter gibes at religion, political
iournalism was confined to two meagre periodicals, the Gazette
of Spener and the Gazette of Voss, containing half the interest
which can be found nowadays in the humblest rural paper.
A few dry facts as to the movements of the Court, an official
decree or circular, talk of a forthcoming sale of horses, a notice
of a book or two, half a dozen advertisements — such is the type
of German newspaper in the eighteenth century. Timid,
jejune, servile, plunging into the turbid morasses of science,
literature, and theology in its efforts to avoid the surging and
perilous waters of politics, it is powerless to instruct, to amuse,
or to influence.

There was indeed some improvement during the last quarter
of the century. Schlozer, a professor of the University of
Gottingen and a Hanoverian subject, started, about 1770,
a political paper, in which many acts of oppression and injustice
committed by the smaller German despots were freely criticized.
But there was an ample dose of discretion mixed with the
valour of the professor. The editor took care never to attack
his own government, which would have been suicidal, or the
governments of Prussia and Austria, which would have been
dangerous. The names of the contributors who supplied him
with facts were carefully concealed, and their manuscripts re-
copied before they were sent to the press. The Hanoverian
authorities, who may have enjoyed an exhibition of satirical
artillery that would never be directed against themselves, replied
to the representations of outraged princelets that the King of

1 Levy-Bruhl, L'Allemagne depuis Leibnitz, 208.

2 Salomon, Geschichte des deutschen Zeitungswesens, ii. 42 ff.

GERMANY AND FRANCE 19

England granted his subjects entire liberty of thought and
writing 1,

But though political papers multiplied towards the end of
the century, especially after 1789, the political press never
became a power. The publicists either noisily croaked over
a particular abuse in a neighbouring State or else smothered
themselves in the clouds of abstract philosophical disquisition.
Feeling was growing that political inequality must be absurd,
but no one dared advocate far-reaching changes. The cumbrous-
ness of the imperial constitution was a commonplace, but no
newspaper undertook a campaign for its reform. Indeed, thirty
years of peace seemed a sufficient answer to those who would
plead the necessity of organic change 2.

In some territories the Landstande or Estates afforded a pos-
sibility of debate ; but though these assemblies sometimes per-
formed a useful office, acting as checks upon the autocratic
power of the prince, they did not provide any real political
training. They were for the most part highly aristocratic in
composition, their powers were circumscribed, and their meet-
ings were often intermitted for long periods of time, during
which they were represented by a standing committee. No
great reform was ever inaugurated, no great abuse was ever
repressed by the Landstande. The Hessian Estates repeatedly
sanctioned the traffic in Hessian soldiery. The provincial
Estates of Hanover, despite the connexion of the Electorate
with the free people of England, never supported the abolition
of noble privilege or the emancipation of the peasantry. Indeed,
the fashion of enlightened despotism, which prevailed in the
forward German States during the later half of the eighteenth
century, tended more and more to throw these bodies into the
shade; and the more advanced and intelligent opinion of Germany
condemned them as obsolete instruments of reaction, much as
the Parliament of Paris was condemned by Voltaire and Turgot 3.

The extreme intricacy of the Germanic Constitution and the
complication of territorial rights and claims gave a peculiar

1 Levy-Bruhl, 209-10.

2 Erdmannsdorffer, Aus den Zeiten des deutschen Fursteribundes , 10.

8 Preser, Der Soldatenhandel in Hessen ; Moser, Der Herr und der
Diener, 103-4 ; Winkopp, Der Rheinische Bund, vi. 126.

c2

20 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

colour to political activity. The qualities required in a public
servant were rather those of the skilled solicitor who knows all
the intricacies of a large and complicated family estate than
those of the politician who has to gauge and direct popular forces
or to devise remedies for popular discontent. Since, for the
most part, the revenues of the State were derived from the
private domains of the sovereign, the art of public finance was
hardly known, and forestry, mining, and farm management
became a branch of politics. A theory of administration, or
Cameral Science, as it was called, was invoked to aid the State
Treasury in its multifarious and domestic functions ; and
Cameral Studies formed the most valuable and substantial portion
of German political literature in the eighteenth century.
The economics of forestry were discovered by von Carlowitz ;
Sussmilch's theory of population expounded the political value
of numbers to Frederick the Great ; while Schlozer of Gottingen
helped to create descriptive statistics.

The pursuit of technical studies at the Universities doubtless
had some advantages, and it was only natural that, in a country
wasted and depopulated by the Thirty Years' War, the theory
of production should have outrun the theory of exchange. But
an investigation of the phenomena of exchange in general
would have been more fruitful and illuminating, and would
have provided a better discipline to statesmen than the specialized
and highly technical counsels of the Cameralists. The system
of the French economists or physiocrats, however, was more
theoretical and less immersed in matter than the Cameralistic
Science ; and, despite many fallacies, it had the supreme merit of
preaching freedom of trade. It was received with enthusiasm in
the German Universities, being made known chiefly through the
JEphemerides du citoyen, published from 1767 onwards, and was
only displaced by the victorious force of Adam Smith's Wealth
of Nations. This great treatise, however, though it had been
translated into German in 1776-8, had hardly left a mark upon
opinion before the French Revolution. Nor can it be said that it
had in any way affected the public policy of the German States \

1 Roscher, Geschechte der National-Oekonomik in Deutschland ; Higgs,
The Physiocrats ; Dictionary of Political Economy, art. German School of
Political Economy.

GERMANY AND FRANCE 21

Yet nowhere was there stronger need for sound economic
doctrine. Malthus, who travelled in Germany in 1799, said that
there was no part of the country rich enough to support an
extensive system of parochial relief, and though the remark is
perhaps exaggerated, it testifies to the general impression of in-
digence left upon the mind of an acute observer 1. The volume
of trade was small, and impeded by the most absurd and
harassing regulations. Industry was stifled by guilds, by State
supervision, and by unwise taxes, while the agricultural population,
weighted by feudal dues and services, was unable to turn the
soil to the best advantage. The roads were few and bad ; the
towns decayed in numbers and prosperity ; the population
stationary, if not diminishing 2. Thirty years of peace had done
nothing to promote the economic prosperity of Prussia, simply
through the unwise legislation of the Prussian government ;
and yet Prussia was in the van of reform 3. It is a singular
fact that Frederick the Great, who was so deeply impressed by
the belief that the strength of States consists in population 4,
should never have dreamt of establishing free trade in land, or
of abolishing serfdom — the two surest methods for increasing
the population and the resources of his kingdom. And where
Frederick II was blind it was not vouchsafed that his successor
should see.

' The Germans,' wrote Mme. de Stael, ' have much universality
in mind, in literature, and in philosophy, but none in affairs.
. . . They unite the greatest audacity of thought to the most
obedient character V The servile respect for authority, whether
embodied in the person of a prince or in the parchment of an
ancient document, had entirely obliterated the power of correct
political vision in the whole nation. Though the study of

1 Essay on the Principle of Population (reprint of 1890), 492.

2 Before the Thirty Years' War the population of Germany was possibly
25,000,000. In 1816 it was reckoned at 24,830,000. Himly's figure for
the eighteenth century (28,000,000 to 30,000,000) is too large. The total
population of the free towns was at most 700,000 (G. von Schonberg,
Volkswirthschaftslehre, i. 865-9 ; Himly, Formation territorial de P Europe,
290, 304).

3 Philippson, Geschichte des preussischen Staatswesens, i. 444. Most of
the Silesian towns were heavily indebted in 1789 (ibid. 445).

4 Antimachiavel, c. 5. 5 De I'Allemagne, liv. i, c. 13, § 2.

n NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

history and political economy was actively pursued, nobody
seemed to understand the significance and drift of events.
While Napoleon was revolutionizing their country, the pub-
licists of Germany were applying their frigid erudition to the
discussion of irrelevant and futile constitutional subtleties,
and the most momentous period of German history only pro-
duced two political writers of talent. Bishop Butler once asked
himself the question whether a whole nation can go mad. With
some of the German periodical literature of this time in one's
recollection, one is tempted to ask whether a whole nation may
not grow blind 1.

The French Revolution supplied the electric shock which
woke Germany from her lethargy. To the intellectual class the
fall of the Bastille and the Declaration of Rights seemed to be
the prelude of the golden age. Minds and characters so diverse
as those of Kant and Fichte, of Goethe and Stolberg, were
affected by something of the contagious enthusiasm. * The 14th
of July,' wrote Johann von Muller, the historian, ' is the finest
day there has been since the fall of the Roman Empire.' The
whole literary class was in ecstasies, for the cosmopolitan and
humanitarian dreams upon which it had fed for more than
a generation seemed destined at last to pass into the region of
palpable things.

Yet there is in every nation a massive fund of unexamined
sentiment which outweighs all the light sparkling coin of
literary gentlemen. Germany had thought, dreamed, criticized,
jested, but the last thing which could be said of German public
opinion was that it was revolutionary. The peasantry was
alike incapable of generalizing its grievances and closely wedded
to ancient ways. There was the strongest attachment to the
princely dynasties, there was a deep-rooted respect for birth and
titles. The governments were despotic and for the most part
reactionary. Though Kant had proclaimed that man should
be treated as an end in himself, there was no readiness to apply

1 Read the pedantries which appeared in Winkopp^ Der Rheinische Bund,
or Voss, Die Zeiten. Gorres (with Gentz the only real German publicist
of the period) is properly severe on German Unklarheit (Politische Schriften,
i. 115-32). A similar complaint urged against Prussia is to be found in
Massenbach, Memoiren, iii. 48.

GERMANY AND FRANCE 23

the doctrine to the economics of the village, or to liberate serfs
after the quixotic manner of Joseph II of Austria or Charles
Frederick of Baden. Goethe for four years held high office in
the government of Weimar; he was in favour of freeing the
peasantry from feudal burdens, and of multiplying peasant
holdings, but he was totally unable to give effect to these
amiable views, so great were the obstructions of the vested
interests K No one loved or appreciated the German country-
folk more deeply than Justus Moser, the learned and fanciful
historian of Osnabriick, but he defended serfdom and solemnly
argued that unpropertied persons were not entitled to the benefits
of the ordinary forms of law 2.

Again, the German was essentially pious. Unorthodox views
of Biblical exegesis are happily consistent with that virtue.
There was not, as in France, a passion to subvert a dominant
priesthood, for the priesthood in Germany was never dominant.
Nor was there a feeling, save for a short time in Bavaria, that
the Church was a formidable enemy to freedom of thought.
Indeed, the Lutheran divines ' thought ' far too freely for the
taste of their congregations, and the Catholic religion was at
once more tolerant and more staid than in any other country in
Europe. When Napoleon was at Weimar in 1808 he learnt
that Wieland was described as the Voltaire of Germany. With
a touch of malicious curiosity he summoned the veteran writer
into the ball-room and tried to take the measure of his
infidelity. 'Is there not,' he asked, 'good reason to believe
that Jesus Christ never existed ? ' The old man streamed into
rhetorical denials 3. There were in truth many Semlers but no
Voltaires in Germany.

If German society was ill-prepared to accept the French
Revolution, still less prepared were the German governments.
Some of them had been willing to initiate reforms, but they
had no intention of capitulating to the mob. Prussia was now
in the full tide of obscurantist reaction, and quick to take

1 Goethe an Frau von Stein, April 2, 1782, and June 9, 1784 ; and cf.
Roscher, Geschichte der National-Oekonomik in Deutschland, 477-9.

2 Werke, ii. 14, v. 119, x. 155. For these references I am indebted to
Hettner, iii. 383-4.

3 J. von Miiller, Erinnerungen, 251-2.

24 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

alarm at the least symptom of democracy. As early as the
autumn of 1792 the government of Frederick William II pro-
hibited all French publications in Prussia, and the strictest
measures were devised to control the entrance of French
emigrants into the Prussian dominions. In the same year
Austria and Prussia declared war upon the French Republic.
A peasant revolt in Silesia in 1793, supplemented by minor riots
in other parts of Germany, still further emphasized the policy of
repression. The Diet of Ratisbon, urged by Weimar, Prussia,
and Saxony, formally prohibited students"' associations, under
the belief that they were specially productive of political
ferment, and in 1797 the Prussian government instituted
a permanent commission of professors in every University of
the kingdom, charged with the duty of checking the political
ebullition of the students. Thus a bridle was placed upon
the only class in the community which possessed ideas and the
spirit of reform 1.

Two conceptions of the State, one based upon autocracy
and privilege, and the other based upon political freedom and
equality before the law, were now brought into sudden conflict.
The conquests of revolutionary France no longer permitted
the question to remain in academic shadow. In 1794 the right
bank of the Rhine was conquered and absorbed into the new
system, and though in the following year Prussia made her
peace with the French Directorate, and withdrew Northern
Germany from the war, the contest between the old regime
and the new still continued. Austria and England remained
at war with France, fighting for Belgium, for the lost Rhenish
Germany, and for the old incapable Bourbon dynasty. In 1796
French democracy swept into Northern Italy. A young general
of the Directorate overran the Lombard plain, brushed away the
Sardinian king, overcame the armies of the alien Austrians, and
established new-fangled republican institutions upon the French
model over the vale of the Po. If he should complete his conquest
of Austria and make terms at Vienna, what might not be the
fate of Germany ? In September 1797 General Hoche had set
up a Cisrhenane republic at Bonn. Would there then be

1 Levy-Bruhl, L'Allemagne depuis Leibnitz, 232-3 ; Philippson, Geschichte
des preussischen Staatswesens , ii. 184.

GERMANY AND FRANCE 25

a series of such republics, Cisalpine, Cisrhenane, Alemannian,
Bavarian, forming an eastern vanguard for the new de-
mocracy? The future lay in the hands of Bonaparte the
conqueror of Italy, but he stopped short in the full tide of
victory and on October 17 made peace with Austria at Campo-
Formio.

1 Chief Authorities : Hausser, Deutsche Geschichte ; Sorel, V Europe
et la Revolution francaise ; Rambaud, Les Francais sur le Rhin ; Philippson,
Geschichte des preussischen Staatswesens ; Hettner, Geschichte der deutschen
Litteratur im achtzehnten Jahrhundert ; Levy-Bruhl, V Allemagne depuis
Leibnitz ; Mirabeau, De la monarchic prussienne.

CHAPTER II

BONAPARTE AND THE FIRST GERMAN
REVOLUTION

I

CAMPO-FORMIO AND RASTADT

( C'est ici que se decide maintenant le sort de Tunivers entier.'

Metternich, Memoires.

It was during the negotiations leading to the Treaty of
Campo-Formio that Bonaparte first came into contact with the
political problems of Germany. Two great Austrian provinces,
the Netherlands and the Milanese, had been conquered by
France, and French diplomacy intended to retain them. A new
State, the Cisalpine Republic, had been founded by Bonaparte
in Northern Italy from the Milanese, from part of the Papal
territories, and from the principality of Modena, and no peace
would be concluded by France unless the Cisalpine Republic
were recognized by the Court of Vienna. These demands,
however, were far from exhausting the sum of the French
claims. It was one of the secular ambitions of the Bourbon
monarchy to extend the dominion of France to the waters of
the Rhine. Henry II had acquired Metz, Toul, and Verdun,
and the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) had legalized the acquisi-
tion of these bishoprics in Lorraine, and added to them
Austrian Alsace. Under Louis XIV the Rhine frontier was
more than a policy, it was a passion. First Aix-la-Chapelle
and then Franche-Comte, and lastly Strasburg and the re-
mainder of Alsace, passed from Germany to France. Under
the later Bourbons the momentum of French arms was en-
feebled, but the aims of French diplomacy were unchanged,
and the most pacific of ministers managed to extract from the
Polish War of Succession the reversion of the Duchy of Lorraine

CAMPO-FORMIO AND RASTADT 27

to the Crown of France. The Republic inherited the ambitions
and completed the work of the Monarchy. French armies
overran Belgium, revolutionized Holland, and sent the three
Electors of Mainz, Treves, and Cologne flying across the Rhine.
But these conquests, though practically complete, had not yet
been recognized by Diet or Emperor. It was accordingly part
of the French scheme to extract from the Germanic body
a formal cession of the conquered territories upon the left bank
of the Rhine.

But to secure concessions of such magnitude it was necessary
to find compensation for the House of Hapsburg. Bonaparte
had astutely foreseen and made provision for the emergency.
The Republic of Venice was weak and defenceless ; it marched
with the Austrian border ; it offered a post on the Adriatic ;
it was invested with the glory of a great commercial and
political tradition. On shameful pretexts its territory was
occupied by the French army, and the form of its ancient
constitution overturned. Such a bait was too tempting to be
refused, and by the Treaty of Campo-Formio the Emperor
accepted Venice, Istria and Dalmatia, and all the Venetian
territory west of the Adige. In return he ceded Belgium,
renounced Lombardy, and consented to the convocation of
a congress at Rastadt (a small town in the Duchy of Baden) to
settle the terms of peace between France and the German
Empire. Yet the cool reason which dictated these provisions
was supplemented by a startling touch of imagination. In the
distribution of the spoils of Venice, France claimed Corfu and
the Ionian Islands. It was the first overt hint of those oriental
ambitions which exerted so powerful a fascination over the
mind of Bonaparte. With characteristic versatility he had
profited by the humiliations of Austria to lay stepping-stones
towards the conquest of Egypt and of all that might lie
beyond.

These were the public clauses of the treaty. The secret
articles were more important for Germany, and revealed the
indifference of Austria to the integrity of the Reich. The
Emperor promised to help France to obtain almost all the
German possessions west of the Rhine, save the three Prussian
territories of Cleves, Meurs, and Guelders, a stipulation dictated

28 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

by no love for the Court of Berlin, but solely that Prussia
might be deprived of any claint to compensation. In return the
French government promised to assist Austria to acquire the
Bishopric of Salzburg and a section of Western Bavaria. For
every acquisition France might make in Germany the Emperor
was to receive an equivalent, and conversely France was to be
compensated for any future extensions of Austrian power
within the Empire. While the Emperor promised to urge the
Diet to relinquish its suzerain and feudal claims over Italy, the
two contracting parties agreed to * unite their good offices ' to
secure adequate compensations for the princes and States of the
Empire who should suffer loss either in virtue of the Treaty
of Campo-Formio itself, or in consequence of the agreement
hereafter to be made at Rastadt between the French Republic
and the Diet. The Prince of Orange, who had been deprived
of the Stadtholderate of Holland, was likewise to receive a
territorial indemnity in Germany. Lastly, twenty days after
the exchange of ratifications, the Austrian troops were to
withdraw within the hereditary dominions of the Emperor,
a measure which would leave Western Germany open and
defenceless before a French advance, while by an additional
secret convention Austria promised to take the diplomatic steps
necessary to secure the cession of Mainz to France. All these
undertakings were made by the head of the Hapsburg House,
not as Emperor, but as King of Bohemia and Hungary.

6 Never, for many centuries,' wrote Bonaparte to the Minister
of Foreign Affairs, ' has a more brilliant peace been made V The
recognition of the regicide government of France by one of the
most conservative Courts of Europe ; the acquisition of Belgium
and Mainz, of the Rhine frontier and the Ionian Islands ; the
acceptance of the Cisalpine Republic ; the fresh dissension sown
between Austria and Prussia, and between Austria and the
Reich ; the large place reserved for the French Republic in the
assignment of territorial compensations in Germany — such were
the results of Bonaparte's prowess as general and diplomatist.

The treaty marks a new epoch in the history of Germany.
A serious blow was struck at the German Empire, which was
condemned to lose the left bank of the Rhine, the Circle of
1 Napoleon Corr. iii. 392, no. 2,307.

203575

CAMP0-F0RMI0 AND RASTADT 29

Burgundy, and all those ancient Italian rights which had been
the object of so many a bitter contest ever since in the tenth
century Otto I had marched his Saxons to Rome to claim the
Imperial crown. The secularization of the ecclesiastical prin-
cipalities was rendered inevitable, since it was decided that the
German princes dispossessed on the left bank were to receive
territorial compensations on the right. Foreigners — a Prince
of Modena, a Prince of Orange — were to be imported into the
Empire. And yet Austria, who consented to all this, who was
willing to go hand in hand with France in the traffic of
populations at the expense of the old territorial arrangements
of the Empire, was to lose little or nothing herself. Though
she had been defeated in five campaigns, she had contrived to
cancel her penalties. Venice was more than adequate com-
pensation for the Milanese, and the Inn quarter of Bavaria for
the Netherlands, which Austria had always regarded as a useless
encumbrance. The treaty in fact consolidated, unified, and
rounded off her territories, and provided that Prussia, for all
her timid subservience to France and jealously guarded neu-
trality, should gain nothing. Basle was avenged at Campo-
Formio. As Prussia had abandoned Austria and the Empire
in 1795, so Austria abandoned Prussia and the Empire in 1797.
France was waiting to reap the fruit of their jealousies.

The air was full of ideas and apprehensions when the diplo-
matists of Germany gathered together at Rastadt. Short-
sighted optimists believed that they were about to witness
a new birth of the old Empire — an improvement in imperial
justice, freedom of the press, religious toleration, the abolition
of beggary, the protection of German manufactures. Other
pamphleteers were frankly Gallican. A German patriot re-
commended the cession of Ehrenbreitstein, an alliance between
France and Prussia, and a great neutral union of German
princes. The venerable body of the Reich was made the butt
of many frivolous jests and satirical brochures. The imperial
titles, it was intimated by one writer, might be sold by auction
to provide for the funeral of the defunct Empire. The army
might go to the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, the Golden Bulls to
the Pope, the archives to the chemists, and the revenues to the
poor-house at Ratisbon, for it was clear that the French

30 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Republic was the sole lawful heir of the left bank of the
Rhine.

The clumsy mockery of the pamphleteers was amply de-
served. Save the French Republic, hardly a power represented
at Rastadt was not at once deceiving and deceived. The
delegates of the Emperor professed to be anxious for the
integrity of the Reich, which in the secret articles of Campo-
Formio their master, as King of Bohemia and Hungary, had so
completely betrayed. Austria believed that France, in pur-
suance of her promise, would assist her to procure part of
Bavaria, but the government of the Directorate had no such
intentions. She believed that France would neither take from
Prussia territory on the left bank, nor give to her territory on
the right, for this too had been promised in the Treaty of
Campo-Formio. But France had already signed a treaty with
Prussia (May 5, 1796) by which the latter power had been
promised the Westphalian bishoprics as an indemnity for her
losses on the left bank. The smaller German powers came to
the Congress loudly protesting their fidelity to the Empire.
But many of them had already entered into secret understand-
ings with France, according to which they were to receive
compensations at the expense of the German Church. The
Landgrave of Hesse had even been promised the Electoral hat.

Upon this curious and sordid turmoil Bonaparte descended,
as First Plenipotentiary of the French Republic. Leaving
Milan December 17, 1797, he crossed Mont Cenis to Geneva,
where three hours after midnight he caused the imprisonment
of the banker Bontemps, who had been delated to him for an
offence against the government of France. At Soleure he was
received with suspicion, and his advice to the inhabitants of
Berne to make a fourteenth Canton of the Pays de Vaud was
rejected with pride. He stopped at Morat to visit the field
of battle and deplore the faults of Charles the Bold. A guard
of honour attended him from Geneva to Basle, and in the last-
named city he was received with arches and acclamations.
* I will not compare you to Turenne or Montecuculi ; I will only
say Bonaparte is the greatest man of the universe,' is a phrase
culled from one of the complimentary speeches delivered on the
occasion. When the General sat down to dinner, respectable

CAMPO-FORMIO AND RASTADT 31

citizens acted as waiters in order that they might have a closer
view of the conqueror of Italy. The honoured guest improved
the occasion according to his custom. 'The men of Basle,"'
he said, 'like the Genevans, have in consideration of their
democratic feelings a special claim on the friendship of the
French Republic ' ; and again : i If the enemy had been fortunate,
Basle would have been made a fief of the Empire.' It was the
pose of the destroyer of Venice to appear as the champion of
the democratic party in Switzerland, and to link his own name
with those of the Swiss heroes who had fought in the liberating
wars against the House of Hapsburg. But there was little time
to develop the theme. On the night of November 25, after
a swift journey, he mounted to the quarters assigned to him in
the florid old Castle of Rastadt, which had been built by that
Margrave Louis of Baden who had acquired such fame in the
Turkish wars of the seventeenth century l .

It was not Bonaparte's intention to plunge deeply into the
Serbonian bog of the compensations. He wished to exchange
the ratifications of the Treaty of Campo-Formio, to hasten the
signature of the military convention which was to cede Mainz
to France, to impress upon the peace Deputation the necessity
for speed, to terrify them by hints of force, to glitter for
a moment at this famous Congress which his victories had called
into being. He had not yet shown himself to the Germans,
and indeed German problems had hardly occupied his brain
except in so far as they were involved in the negotiations with
Austria. But these negotiations had fixed a conviction in his
mind. ' If the Germanic Body,' he wrote to the Directorate,
May 27, 1797, 'did not exist, we should have to create it
expressly for our convenience V An ardent student of the life
and campaigns of Frederick the Great, he could not fail to be
acquainted with the main historical forces which were at work
in Germany, but the moment for complete initiation had not
yet come. Paris was calling for her Italian victor, and the

1 Bailleu, Preussen und Frankreich, i. 178 ; Napoleon Corr. iii. 450,
no. 2,379 : Barras, Memoires, iii. 99, 104 ; Ochs, Geschichte der Stadt
Basel, viii. 246 ff. ; Moniteur, nos. 76, 77 ; Lanfrey, c. x ; Hueffer, Der
Rastatter Congress.

2 Corr. iii. 74, no. 1,836.

32 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

young general was anxious to enjoy a triumph in the capital,
and to take the horoscope of its base and divided government.

Meanwhile it would be possible to get to know something
more of German men and matters. It was reported that at
Friesenheim the General had made exhaustive inquiries into
the characters and dispositions of the Margrave of Baden and
his ministers ; and the Court at Karlsruhe received the flattering
intelligence that 'Baden and Wiirtemberg are the German
princes who realize expectations.1 Soon after the arrival at
Rastadt the General expressed a wish to see the members of the
peace Deputation. They made their visits sometimes separately,
sometimes in twos and threes, full of curiosity as to the appear-
ance and demeanour of this wonderful man. They describe his
yellow complexion, his thin body, his lively gestures and pro-
found glance, his dress rich but careless, his bearing courteous
but unconstrained by diplomatic forms. He held the ear of
Georgii, a deputy from Wiirtemberg, as he walked him through
two long saloons, cross-questioning him upon the affairs of the
duchy, and appearing well content to learn that in the Estates
of Wiirtemberg there was neither Tiers Etat nor Noblesse.
Towards the Margrave of Baden, upon whose territory the
Congress was held, and who presented him with a carriage
and four horses, he professed to entertain feelings of special
regard. It was noticed that he was peculiarly polite to the
envoys of the free towns, to whom he would expound his own
love of liberty, and the community of principle which should
bind them to France. He did not conceal his disgust at the
delay of the Austrian plenipotentiaries (the old fogies, les
ganaches, as he called them) to appear at the Congress, and
he uttered his mind with characteristic frankness upon the
most important affairs of state. To the envoys of Baden he
explained the importance of the future French garrisons at
Mainz and Kehl for the princes of the Empire, who would
thereby be protected by France against their natural foes
Prussia and Austria. That Austria was the chief enemy of
the Reich was the burden of many a discourse. The order
issued by the Emperor to the deputies at Rastadt to respect
the integrity of the Reich was, he explained, * mere comedy,1
since the integrity of the Reich had already been sacrificed at

CAMPO-FORMIO AND RASTADT 33

Campo-Formio. He had in his possession ' two hundred letters
and proofs 1 that Thugut had received bribes from the French
at Constantinople, and if that Austrian statesman had thrown
any further obstacles in the way of peace they would have been
published to the world. To Albini, envoy of the Elector, he
said brusquely, ' Where will the Elector reside when he has lost
Mainz ? ' When the officers of the garrison at Rastadt came
to pay their respects, he delivered to them a harangue upon the
unimportance of Baden in the military world. Von Stadion,
who happened to pay his call attired in the mantle of a Wiirz-
burg canon, received a lecture upon the position of the German
clergy. 'The German bishops,"' said Bonaparte, 'are spiritual
rulers and men of war. How do these titles agree ? How are
they grounded in the Gospel ? The Electors of Treves, Cologne,
and Mainz are always talking about Heaven, but their castles
and riches are a hindrance to their getting there. Do you
know that the Gospel says, " The rich shall not enter into the
Kingdom of Heaven" ?' With von Loben, the Saxon envoy, he
talked of the Golden Bull, the Imperial Constitution, and the
Deputation. When the envoy explained that both religious
parties were equally represented at the Congress, Bonaparte
remarked that for that they had specially to thank the Elector
Maurice of Saxony and his struggles against Charles V. He
spoke of the Imperial Constitution as a metaphysical body
without coherence : one part waged war, another stood neutral,
a third concluded peace. To Professor Martens of Gottingen,
who was present as Councillor of the Hanoverian Deputation,
he said, ' You teach public law ; it must be modernized. How
does the North-German line of demarcation agree with the
precepts of the Constitution ? I believe the learned men will
have to make a good many changes in their Code. The small
sovereigns, who now follow the Emperor and now Prussia, must
feel that France is their natural protector, and make peace like
Baden and Wurtemberg.') Above all he insisted that there
must be no delays, no second edition of the tedious drama of
the Westphalian negotiations, for if the Reich did not accept
the situation promptly, the French drums would be tapping
in the Black Forest to bring Germany to its senses. These con-
versations were generally held as Bonaparte and his guests sat

FISHER D

34 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

round the stove in the evening, when the darkness had blotted
the western spurs of the Schwarzwald and the distant outlines
of the Vosges \

It was in the same room — in the left wing of the castle — as
that in which old Marshal Villars had slept when he came to
sign another treaty sixty-five years before. A room of many
memories ! It was here, before the astonished old-fashioned
diplomats of the Reich, with their stiff thoughts and formal
manners and carefully powdered perruques, that Bonaparte
first expounded his thoughts upon Germany, reeling them out
with the verve of an Italian improvisatore, as a man might
tell a ghost story or a fairy tale to act as a cordial against
the chill November night.

Among the interviews of this memorable time there was one
which attracted considerable notice. The King of Sweden, who
had not recently troubled himself much about German affairs,
had now waked up to the fact that both as Duke of Pomerania
and as one of the guarantors of the Peace of Westphalia, he
was entitled to take part in the proceedings of the Congress.
In the latter capacity (as guarantor of the treaty) he now sent
to Rastadt Count Fersen, a man who is famous in history as
having been the Swedish ambassador in Paris during the
French Revolution, and as one of the contrivers of the flight to
Varennes. On the afternoon of November 28, Count Fersen
called upon Bonaparte. His presence was extremely distasteful
on three grounds. In the first place it conflicted with Article
20 of the Peace of Campo-Formio, which restricted the Congress
to the envoys of the Republic on the one hand and of the
Reich on the other. In the second place, if Sweden claimed to
be represented as guarantor of the Treaty of Westphalia,
Russia might equally claim to be represented as guarantor of
the Peace of Teschen ; and, thirdly, the personality of Fersen,
a declared antagonist of the French Republic, was almost an
insult. 'I cannot understand,' said the General, 'how the
Swedish Court can send an ambassador whose person must
be decidedly unpleasant to every French citizen. . . . No, sir,

1 Vreede, La Souabe apres la paioc de Bale, lxv ; Erdmannsdorffer,
K. F. von Baden, Politische Korrespondenz , iii. 13-20 ; Hausser, Deutsche
Geschichte, ii. 146 ff. ; Hueffer, Der Rastatter Congress.

CAMPO-FORMIO AND RASTADT 35

the French Republic will not tolerate that persons, who are
only too well known through their connection with the old
kingly house, should come to insult the representatives of the
First People of the Earth.' After a stormy interview Fersen
was shown to the door. ' He changed colour many times,1
wrote Bonaparte with satisfaction to the Directorate.

On the evening of November 28, the Austrian envoy Cobenzel
arrived, and Bonaparte was able at last to get to business.
The military convention, which arranged for the cession of
Mainz to France and for the evacuation of the Venetian
provinces by the French, was signed on December 1. To the
proposal of Cobenzel to leave Germany as it was, and to provide
compensations in Italy, Bonaparte would not give a hearing.
He was not inclined to disturb the Cisalpine Republic, and he
had seen enough of Germany to know that French interests
lay in the secularization of the ecclesiastical territories, and
in the attachment of the German princes of the west to French
rule. Nor was he now inclined to reopen large questions of
policy. Immediately after the signature of the convention,
at 3 a.m. on December 2, he left Rastadt, abruptly postponing
a promised visit to the Margrave of Baden, and summoned by
a letter which he had caused Barras to write to him. The
Austrian plenipotentiaries were told that he expected to be
back again in a week's time. But sharp people thought that
Rastadt had seen the last of him K

In Paris he was interviewed by Sandoz Rollin, the Prussian
envoy, and to him made further discourse of German affairs.
'The Great Frederick is the hero whom I love to consult in
everything, in war and in administration : I have studied his
principles in the midst of camps, and his familiar letters are for
me lessons of philosophy."' To the proposal that France should
concert with both the Prussian and the Austrian Courts upon
the principal objects to be submitted to the Congress, he
replied hastily in the negative, saying that the secret articles

1 Corr. iii. 452, no. 2,382 ; Hueffer, Der Rastatter Congress ; F. 0.,
Germany, 20. ' At a drawing-room held yesterday, His Majesty spoke to
Prince Reuss with interest and much sensibility on the melancholy
accounts which arrived from the Empire, and seemed piqued at the
haughtiness of ce Monsieur B. and the other French plenipotentiaries
at Rastadt' (Elgin to Grenville, Dec. 25, 1797.—^. 0., Prussia, 46).

d2

36 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

at Campo-Formio had been drafted to suit the Court of Berlin,
and that it was regrettable that Prussian envoys had not been
sent to Udine or Rastadt. He defended his method of treating
with both powers separately, a method well calculated to
prolong the German discord.

'The policy of Austria,' he said on another occasion, Ms to
remove her possessions from the French Republic and to have
no point of contact with her. This ought also to be the policy
of Prussia. Our revolutionary principles should suit the one
power as little as the other.' He protested against the idea
of calling Russia and Sweden in to assist at the Congress ; he
said that Prussia was the natural ally of France, and that she
would do well to recognize the Cisalpine Republic and * to
establish with it relations of the most intimate amity,'' the
surest way to embitter the relations between the Courts of
Berlin and Vienna. The cession of the left bank of the Rhine
had been agreed upon between the Court of Vienna and himself,
and it should be carried into effect. Certainly the possession
of Mainz, which the Emperor had abandoned to France 'in
a deplorable manner,' and without compulsion, had given the
Directorate the idea and afterwards the right (Tidee et bientot
le droit) of acquiring the left bank of the Rhine, a thing which
otherwise could not have occurred to its mind. But his desire
and that of the Directorate was that the King of Prussia
should intervene in the Treaty of Campo-Formio, and induce
the Electors of Saxony and Hanover to consent to the cession
of the left bank before the Emperor compelled them to do
so. Prussia would thus be taking upon herself some of the
odium which would attach to Austria as the author of the
dismemberment of the Empire, and thereby acquire a claim to
larger indemnities. It was not obscurely hinted that if Prussia
declined to depart from her passive neutrality she would have
to witness the aggrandizement of Austria at the expense of
Bavaria, and the overthrow of the balance of power within the
German Empire1.

It is hardly necessary to point out that these reasonings were
disingenuous. The cession of Mainz had been forced on Austria ;
the idea of the Rhine frontier was as old as the sixteenth

1 Bailleu, Preussen und Frankreich, ii. 164-9, 177, 184.

CAMPO-FORMIO AND RASTADT 37

century ; the partition of Bavaria had been agreed upon in
the secret clauses of the Treaty of Campo-Formio, as also that
Prussia was to obtain no compensation at all. But it was
convenient to sow dissension between Berlin and Vienna, to
prevent negotiations between Prussia and Austria about the
compensations, and to involve both Courts in the common dis-
credit attaching to a treaty which ratified the dismemberment
of the Reich.

All the leading ideas which are to govern French policy in
the future — the secularization of the ecclesiastical principalities,
the pretended care for the smaller German princes, the playing
off of Berlin against Vienna, the abolition of the old imperial
polity, the domination of France in Western Germany, the
pushing of Prussia and Austria eastwards,, are represented in
some shape or other in these early conversations of Bonaparte in
1797. These ideas were not born with him nor were they
confined to him. They belonged to an old French diplomatic
tradition ; they had been revived by the conquests of the
revolutionary armies ; they were held by the Directorate. Even
Germans were found to recognize that the Empire was obsolete,
and that the Rhine was the natural frontier of the French
Republic. Nor was Bonaparte intending to resume the threads
of the German negotiation which he had dropped so precipitately
at Rastadt. That Congress, as he shrewdly saw, would last
long ; and it was not one of the fields in which a man might
reap a harvest of praise. He was now General of the Army of
England, inspecting the harbours and fortifications on the
Channel coast, and secretly preparing his Egyptian voyage.
On the night of May 3-4 he suddenly left Paris to embark
at Toulon for the East. Enough that for a brief moment he
has contemplated Germany. He does not forget, and he
intends to return \

1 Rambaud, Les Francais sur le Rhin, 294 ; Bailleu, ii. 162.

Chief Authorities : Koch et Schoell, Histoire abregee des Traites de
Paix, vol. v (contains a list of the older authorities) ; Garden, Histoire
generate des Traites de Paix, vol. vi ; Rambaud, Les Francais sur le Rhin ;
Sorel, Bonaparte et Hoche ; Hueffer, Der Rastatter Congress ; Bailleu,
Preussen und Frankreich ; Erdmannsdorffer, Karl Friedrich von Baden,
Politische Korrespondenz ; Metternich, Memoires, vol. i.

38 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

II

LUNEVILLE AND THE ACT OF MEDIATION

s The common mass of the German States . . . must be gathered into one
by the violence of a conqueror.' — Hegel, 1801.

Two years after his brief visit to Rastadt, Napoleon suddenly
returned from Egypt, overthrew the Directorate, and made
himself master of France. During his absence the Congress
had been dissolved, and war had broken out again upon the
continent. The Austrians and Russians had turned the French
out of Italy ; the English and Russians had made a descent
upon Holland ; and all the issues provisionally settled at
Campo-Formio were again immersed in the boiling and
weltering cauldron of Fate. We are not here concerned with
the military events which alternately depressed and exalted the
fortunes of France, with the capitulation of Alkmaar which freed
Holland from the invading army, with the victory of Zurich
which made France mistress of Switzerland, with Marengo
which destroyed the Austrian dominion in Italy, or with
Hohenlinden which shattered the imperial army in Southern
Germany. Suffice it to say that by 1801 Napoleon could
dictate his own terms, and secure the fruits of his masterly
success. The Treaty of Luneville, February 9, 1801, ' was
nothing else than the Peace of Campo-Formio, a little aggra-
vated for Austria, and leaving the Empire no illusions.1 It
gave France Belgium, Frankenstein, and the Frickthal. It
recognized the Cisalpine Republic. It ceded, both in the name
of the Emperor and in that of the Empire, the German
territories of the left bank to the French Republic, a concession
no longer, as in 1797, embodied in a secret article, but openly
set forth in the seventh clause of the treaty.

The Treaty of Luneville has been called the ' First Revolu-
tion' of Germany. By it a territory of 150,000 square miles,
peopled by 3,500,000 inhabitants, and amounting to about
a seventh part of the population and territory of the whole
Empire, was definitely transferred to foreign non-German
powers. To indemnify the dispossessed princes the principle

LUNEVILLE AND THE ACT OF MEDIATION 39

of secularization was admitted, which was tantamount to under-
mining the foundations of the old Imperial Constitution. But
if the German Empire were doomed to die, its end need not
have been indecorous. The Diet of Ratisbon summoned by the
Emperor to consider the situation agreed, on the motion of
Brandenburg, to ratify the treaty on condition that it should
co-operate in arranging the transfers of territory which the
treaty necessitated. If there had been at that time any feeling
for the good name and internal independence of Germany as
a whole, this business of the compensations would have been
arranged as a domestic matter by the Colleges of the Diet.
But Germany was incapable of common action. In the Diet
itself there were three parties — those who wanted no seculariza-
tion at all, those who wished for a restricted secularization, and
those who would have a complete and absolute secularization
of all ecclesiastical property. The violent ecclesiastics — the
Elector of Treves, the Bishops of Spire and Worms — belonged
to the first party ; Austria, Saxony, and Mainz to the second ;
Prussia and the Protestant powers to the third. Nor was there
any agreement as to the mode in which the Empire should
proceed. Several States would have liked the Emperor to take
upon himself the whole odium and the whole responsibility.
The Emperor was willing enough to do this, but on his own
terms, which meant restricted secularization, a prospect un-
pleasing to northern greed. Saxony proposed that the whole
Reichstag should discuss the affair, but the lay princes, fearing
that they might be swamped by the clerics, the small nobles,
and the towns, opposed. The majority decided upon a system
according to which the Emperor should act as reporter, while
the Reichstag should discuss his proposals, but the Emperor
declined with decision and irony. The jealousies of Austria
and Prussia, each of which wished to secure the largest slice,
added to the difficulty of arriving at an agreement. When,
in September- October 1801, Austria caused an Archduke of
Austria to be elected to the Electorate of Cologne and the
Bishopric of Miinster (the territory of all others which Prussia
was coveting), the rupture between the two powers became
complete, and it was clear that the question of German in-
demnities must be submitted to foreign arbitration.

40 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Even before this incident the Diet had declared its bank-
ruptcy. After futile discussions, lasting from February to
October, it determined (October &) to appoint a commission 8 to
discuss with the French government the questions reserved for a
particular understanding by the Treaty of Luneville.'' But as
the two leading powers represented in the commission were hope-
lessly at variance, this issue was likewise closed. The divisions of
Germany were the opportunity of Bonaparte. He determined to
intervene in conjunction with Alexander of Russia, and to settle
for Germany the affairs she was unable to settle for herself.

'The right of France to intervene,' says a French writer,
'resulted not only from the interest which she had in the
definitive organization of Germany, but from the treaties of
Westphalia, from the special treaties which she had concluded
with most of the German States, Prussia, Baden, Hesse,
Wurtemberg, and Bavaria, and lastly from the text of the
Treaty of Luneville. The right of Russia to intervene was
more contestable. It proceeded from her participation in the
Treaty of Teschen (1779), which had confirmed former treaties,
and from the desire of the First Consul to share his responsi-
bility with a great power V But in truth it is misleading to
speak of technical rights. Franco-Russian mediation was
acceptable to the German powers because they could not agree
among themselves, and it was offered by Napoleon because it
served his interest. The obtuse and dilatory diplomacy of Vienna
gave to the First Consul an opportunity which he was quick
to improve. When Austria proposed to the Court of Munich
that Bavaria should cede certain territories to the Hapsburgs
on her eastern border in exchange for compensations, Bonaparte
explained to the Elector with masterly clearness that such
a step would be fatal to the interests of his house 2. It is no
wonder that the princes spontaneously appealed to him, for an
eye so clear, a hand so firm, a judgement so prompt, were not
to be found in Germany. With serene self-confidence the
French Foreign Office was prepared for the emergency, and
had drawn up a plan of compensation immediately after the
signature of the Treaty of Luneville 3.

1 Rambaud, Les Frartqais sur le Rhin, 336. 2 Corr. vii, 284, no. 5,796.

8 Erdmannsdorffer, iv. 40.

LUNEVILLE AND THE ACT OF MEDIATION 41

In the Franco-Russian note presented to the Diet the
two mediating powers explained their position. They had
been compelled to act by the delays and divisions of Ger-
many ; they were ' perfectly disinterested 1 ; they would proceed
with 'rigorous impartiality.'' Their joint object was so to
arrange the compensations as to 'establish the equilibrium
which existed before the war between the principal houses of
Germany V

We now reach the most degrading page in the history of
Germany. The secular princes, eager for the spoils of the
Church, sent their envoys to Paris to treat with Talleyrand,
the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, who handled the map
of Germany with a freedom little short of being complete. The
base obsequiousness of the German envoys was only equalled by
the timorous greed of their impatient masters, and the favours
of the First Consul were supplicated in terms that would not
have been exceeded for abjectness in Byzantium. The house of
Talleyrand became the mart in which so many square miles,
peopled by so many souls, could be acquired for so many snuff-
boxes, and so many francs, and so many attentions to Madame
Talleyrand's poodle. Princes and dukes, princesses and duch-
esses, paid huge sums to be comprehended in the indemnities.
Some of the money was intercepted by swindling agents : much
found its way into the long purse of Talleyrand, whose
enormous fortune was largely built out of the complimentary
gifts which he received for his services upon this occasion 2.
The First Consul wisely kept himself aloof from the open
traffic, but behind the scenes he was scheming restlessly : plan
after plan for the reconstruction of Germany was drawn up by
his own hands, and then thrown into the fire. Maps would be
specially prepared, and then crossed out : now he would have
Austria near, now he would have her far ; his subordinates
were in despair, and doubted whether he was in earnest, but
it was his policy which really guided events. To isolate

1 Garden, Histoire generate des Traites de Paioc, vii. 147 ff.

2 A lively picture of all this is given in H. von Gagern, Mein Antheil an
der Politik, i. 110 ff. For the presents made to the French see Erdmanns-
dorffer, Politische Korrespondenz , iv. 195, 202, and the curious letter of
Hirsinger to Maret, quoted p. 62, n. 1.

42 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Austria ; to satisfy Prussia so far as possible and to attach her
to France, without permitting her to extend over the centre of
Germany or in the direction of the French frontier ; to make
separate treaties with the small princes ; to build up the
secondary States of Germany, such as Bavaria, Wiirtemberg,
and Baden, into a buffer against the House of Hapsburg ; and
in all this to make such concessions to Russia as might flatter
her pride without in the least impairing the interests of France,
— these were the main ideas of his policy \

Everything did not fall out exactly as Bonaparte would have
wished. He would have given Mecklenburg to Prussia, and
transplanted the two Houses of Schwerin and Strelitz to Fran-
conia. By such an arrangement the Hohenzollerns would have
been prevented from obtaining their compensations either in
the centre or in the west of Germany. They would be thrown
northward and burdened with a large tract of barren and
backward plain, their weight in European affairs would not be
increased, and their political interest would shift from the Main
and the Rhine to the Baltic. The two dukes, however, proud
of their ancient Slavonic descent, refused to move, and even
had they consented, Russia would probably have opposed the
exchange. But the main objects of the First Consul's policy
were attained. Prussian compensations lay partly in the west
— Westphalian abbeys and bishoprics — and partly in the
centre, Erfurt and Eichsfeld l. The coveted Baireuth and Wiirz-
burg went, not to Prussia (as she had hoped), but to Bavaria.
Separate treaties were signed with Baden, Wiirtemberg, and
Hesse-Cassel, promising each territorial gains and the Electoral
dignity. Osnabriick was to go to Hanover, the old Duchy of
Westphalia to Darmstadt ; a new ecclesiastical Electorate at
Aschaffenburg was designed for Dalberg, Coadjutor of Mainz :
the number of free towns was to be reduced from fifty-two to
eight. All this Avas done by a series of separate treaties and
conventions between France on the one hand, and the German
princes or towns on the other.

These treaties and conventions made up the French plan,
which, having received Russia's assent, was presented to the
Diet, accompanied by the insulting but necessary provision that
1 Von Gagem, Mein Antheil an der Politik, i. 110.

LUNEVILLE AND THE ACT OF MEDIATION 43

it must be accepted in two months. Still further to emphasize
the nullity of that ancient body, France authorized her clients
to occupy provisionally the territories assigned to them. The
speed with which this authorization was acted on was the
reverse of edifying, and gave rise to much legitimate outcry.
Meanwhile the peace Deputation of the Diet pursued its ex-
amination of the Franco-Russian plan amidst a storm of
recriminations from all who believed themselves injured. The
Deputation, to save its own dignity, wished to approve the
acceptation of the act of indemnity en bloc, while reserving to
itself the power to make necessary amendments. But Bonaparte
refused to accept a resolution that might have opened the way
to insidious changes, and, so long as the Peace of Amiens lasted,
he held out against any modification of his plan. But the
outbreak of the war with England, and a coolness with Russia,
made him disposed to be more accommodating to Austria, who
had the most powerful reasons for being discontented with the
Franco-Russian plan. Concessions were made to Francis, who
withdrew his opposition, and on February 25, 1803, the Diet
began to discuss the amended plan. Their decree ratifying the
territorial changes proposed by France and Russia changed the
face and the structure of Germany.

The number of German States was reduced by about one-half
by the absorption of the ecclesiastical principalities, in itself
a great and salutary simplification. The old organization of the
Circles was completely broken up. Of the fifty-two free towns
six finally remained : Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck, Frankfort,
Augsburg, Nuremberg. Of the three ecclesiastical Electors,
one only survived, and he was transplanted from Mainz to
Ratisbon, and endowed with an artificially constructed state
and revenue composed of the Bishopric and Principality of
Ratisbon, the town and county of Wetzlar, the Principality of
AschafFenburg, and a charge of 600,000 florins on the Rhenish
octroi. The Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order and of the
Order of St. John represented all that was left of the thirty-
four ecclesiastical votes in the Diet. In the College of Princes
the majority passed from the Catholics to the Protestants, from
the south to the north, from the party of Austria to the party
of Prussia. In the distribution of territory the claims of the

44 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

small princes and knights — the Austrian garrison in the west —
were either wholly or partially disregarded.
\i All the distinctive features of the Holy Roman Empire were
in fact either modified or completely obliterated. The Emperor,
whose prestige had been already shattered by the French
victories, was forced to look on while Bonaparte and his Russian
ally arranged the map of Germany to suit their convenience.
While the ascendency of the Hapsburg House received a fatal
blow by the weakening of the Catholic element of the Diet, by the
destruction of the ecclesiastical principalities, by the surrender
of the interests of the knights and smaller princes, but above all
by the strengthening of Prussia and the intermediate powers,
Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg, the disappearance of most of the
free towns, and of all the ecclesiastical principalities save one,
showed that Germany was at last nearing the end of her
mediaeval constitution. The whole internal balance of power
was in fact overturned. Prussia, which had only lost Cleves,
Meurs, Guelders, some cantons in Frisia, and some customs on
the Meuse and the Rhine, received territories which in popu-
lation and area were three times and in revenue four times as
considerable as those which she had been compelled to relinquish.
She was awarded the Westphalian Bishoprics of Hildesheim and
Paderborn, the town and part of the Bishopric of Munster (one
of the richest sees in Germany), six Westphalian abbeys,
Erfurt and the Thuringian territories which had belonged to the
See of Mainz, and the free towns of Miilhausen, Nordhausen, and
Goslar. Nor was this all. A small State, containing a popu-
lation of one hundred and twenty-six thousand souls, was created
for the Stadtholder of Holland out of the Bishoprics of Fulda
and Corvey, the imperial town of Dortmund and three scattered
abbeys, and destined to revert to the Prussian crown in the
event of the extinction of the Orange line.

Bavaria obtained even greater favours. While she had lost in
the Duchy of Deux-Ponts and other scattered principalities and
possessions on the left bank 580,000 inhabitants and 4,000,000
florins, she was now presented with 854,000 inhabitants and a
revenue of 6,607,000 florins. But these figures only inadequately
represent the value of her new possessions. She acquired the
better part of the Bishopric of Wiirzburg, and the whole of the

LUNEVILLE AND THE ACT OF MEDIATION 45

Bishopric of Bamberg, two of the richest and most civilized
territories in Germany. She obtained the Bishoprics of Freising
and Augsburg, part of the Bishopric of Passau, the Priory of
Kempten, twelve abbeys, and seventeen free towns. Instead
of being scattered in widely dispersed fragments and studded
with municipal and ecclesiastical enclaves, Bavaria was now
a compact and continuous State, nor was it a slight advantage
that her territory with its poor and backward population should
be united to others which had long felt the stimulus of energetic
and enlightened rule.

Baden, which had lost about 25,000 inhabitants and 240,000
florins on the left bank, received benefits on a similar scale from
France. She gained the Bishopric of Constance, together with
the territories on the right bank which were formerly attached
to the Sees of Spire, Strasburg, and Basle, the towns of Heidel-
berg and Mannheim, ten abbeys, seven free towns, and other
possessions, in all 237,000 inhabitants and 1,500,000 florins, or
about ten times as much as she had lost. In addition to this
the Grand Duke of Baden received the Electoral hat.

The Duke of Wiirtemberg and the Landgrave of Hesse-
Cassel were likewise made Electors and obtained large territorial
acquisitions. Hesse-Darmstadt, for the loss of 40,000 subjects,
was recompensed by the gain of three times as many. Hanover
received the Bishopric of Osnabruck ; Mecklenburg a claim on
the octroi of the Rhine. The recipients of these favours were
under no delusions as to the source from which they were
derived. They had bargained for them in Paris, and it was
well understood that the consent of the Reich was a pure form-
ality. For the two years during which the compensations were
being discussed, the influence of Bonaparte was predominant in
Germany, veiled though it was under diplomatic fictions. The
princes who sent their ambassadors to Paris, and their back-
sheesh to Talleyrand, were in reality doing their first acts of
obeisance to the new Charlemagne. Silently but surely the
bases of a new Germanic Confederation were being laid, a con-
federation which looked not to Austria but to France for leader-
ship, protection, and (we must add) for plunder. The externals
of the Empire indeed still existed — the Diet at Ratisbon, the
Court of Wetzlar, the Electoral hats. But no one respected

46 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

them, no one cared when they were to go or how soon, except
a handful of interested or disinterested pedants. The German
Revolution had not been accomplished without exciting passions,
but they were the passions of envy and greed. It had helped
to consolidate and to unify Germany, to make its structure more
reasonable and more modern. But it had not excited enthusiasm,
it had not kindled a spark of patriotism, it had not even fired
the imagination of intellectual men as something tending to
higher things. The people of Germany had no part in this
revolution. The guns of Marengo and Austerlitz gave the
signal for it ; Russia and France presided over its course : the
fruits of the change were enjoyed not by the people but by
the despots who ruled them. Its first result was to enslave
Germany to France.

One person all the while had been watching this sordid
process of dissolution with keen and restless interest. It was
more than five years since Bonaparte obtained his first glimpse
of German men and German affairs at the Congress of Rastadt.
Then he was merely the First General of the Republic, and in no
position to dominate or control the internal rearrangements
which resulted from the treaty his arms had wrung from
Austria. Then he was merely a spectator, but now he was
a master as well. Les gros lots s'arrangent en secret, and
Bonaparte is the final arbiter. To the disappointed Germans
he repeats a formula, Ilfaut etouffer les regrets. If he affected
to believe that politics are propelled by their own momentum,
and that human will is only important in war, it was because
he wished to veil his own interposition1. But none the less
he has learnt many things in the course of this passage of
diplomacy. The map of Germany, the resources and population
of the German States, are now familiar to him. He knows by
heart all the secret ambitions, all the historical traditions, of
the German princes, how many men they can put into the field
under the old dispensation, and how many men they can
command under the new 2. Projects large and small, wise and
sober, shoot through the brain which has been kindled by these
inquiries and discussions. Why should not part of Hanover

1 Von Gagern, i. 112.

2 Erdmannsdorffer, iv. 192, 444.

LUNEVILLE AND THE ACT OF MEDIATION 47

go to Denmark, and Sweden take Norway 1 ? That would
change the whole face of the North. Or why should not
a league or leagues of German princes be formed under French
protection, to serve as a barrier against the ambitions of Prussia
and Austria ? The idea occurs to others as well. On Aug. 29,
1803, several of the smaller princes and counts of the Empire
entered into a union at Frankfort for the purpose of obtaining
the protection of France 2. On Sept. 20 a plan was drawn up
for a League of Princes at Cassel. In November the Houses
of Furstenburg, Hohenlohe, and Oettingen decided to form a
union after the pattern which had been set at Frankfort, and to
send a resident to Paris to protect their rights and prerogatives,
1 finding themselves perhaps unduly disadvantaged by the new
plan of indemnities."' ' The direction of public opinion,' said
Massias the envoy at Karlsruhe to Talleyrand, Feb. 17, 1804,
' seems to me to tend more and more every day to the partition
of Germany V

1 Erdmannsdorffer, v. 76.

2 Hardenberg, Denkwiirdigkeiten, ed. Ranke, ii. 37.

3 Erdmannsdorffer, iv. 438-9, 452, 462.

Chief Authorities : Koch et Schoell, Histoire abregee des Traites de Paix,
vol. vi ; Garden, Histoire generate des Traites de Paix, vol. vii ; Hausser,
Deutsche Geschichte ; Rambaud, Les Francais sur le Rhin ; H. von Gagern,
Mein Antheil an der Politik.

CHAPTER III

HANOVER

( L'Angleterre ! Voila la racine des discordes europeennes ; aussi me
tiendrai-je sans cesse pret a tout evenement.' — Napoleon.

The early years of the Consulate stand out in all French
history as a period of brilliant legislative achievement, and in
the Constitution which centralized authority, in the Concordat
which healed religious strife, and in the Code which harmonized
the discoveries of democratic jurisprudence with the ripe and
tested wisdom of the legists of the Monarchy, we have the
most durable monument of Napoleon's genius. It is difficult
for posterity to realize the delighted rapture with which the
majority of the French nation watched the swift unrolling of
this splendid pageant of civil history. Such boldness of design,
such grandeur of scale, such swift and accurate execution
seemed to reveal a new art of politics, compared with which the
contrivances of other times and other nations appeared paltry
and outworn. Guided and inspired by a mind so potent,
France felt herself fit to rule the world1.

During a portion of this brilliant period in her annals France
was at peace with all the powers of Europe. Her two in-
veterate enemies, Austria and England, had been compelled,
the one at Luneville in 1801, the other at Amiens in 1802, to
come to terms with Napoleon, and it was only in the distant
island of St. Domingo that French armies were still engaged in
warlike operations. It is idle to conjecture what might have
been the course of history if this peace had been prolonged
for ten years, and if Napoleon had continued to concentrate his
splendid energies upon civil and colonial enterprise. But the
sane and temperate character of the Roman was wanting to the
modern Caesar, and England took reasonable alarm at his

1 The early writings of Roederer are the best reflection of the jubilant
enthusiasm of these times.

HANOVER 49

restless ambition. It is indeed as probable that Napoleon did not
intend to provoke war, as it is certain that his actions were
calculated to provoke it. He annexed Piedmont, gave a con-
stitution to Switzerland, and made no secret of his designs on
Egypt. The government of Addington may have violated
technicalities, but no government of spirit and forethought
would have acted otherwise. In May 1803 the short-lived
Peace of Amiens was at an end.

This English war lasted till 1814, and is the master-key to
the later history of Napoleon. All his wars with Austria and
Prussia, with Spain and Russia, which acted with such solvent
power upon the old fabric of Europe, rose out of the war with
England, and are connected with it. To conquer England, as
Napoleon himself said, it was necessary to conquer the continent.
The occupation of Hanover, the confederation of the Rhine,
the formation of client principalities and kingdoms in Germany,
the exclusion of English and colonial wares from the continent,
all these acts of policy flowed from one source, the dogged
antagonism of the English people.

When, in the spring of 1803, diplomatic relations between
France and England showed signs of strain, Napoleon at once
turned his eyes to the German possessions of the British
sovereign. It is true that the Electorate of Hanover, being
a member of the Holy Roman Empire and only bound to
England by a personal connection, was not necessarily involved
in English quarrels. Moreover, Hanover had been expressly
included among the powers neutralized at the Peace of Basle
in 1795, and the English diplomatists argued that if the King
of England went to war with France, he went to war as King
of England and not as Elector of Hanover. Any violation of
Hanoverian territory would, according to this view, be a wanton
violation of North German neutrality and of treaty obligations
entered into by France herself. Such a theory had not com-
mended itself to the Prussians in 1801, and it was little likely
to commend itself to Napoleon in 1803. In 1801 the Prussians
who had joined the Armed Neutrality of the North marched an
army into the Electorate, occupied it for half a year, and left
it impoverished by twenty million thalers. Why should not
Napoleon do likewise ? It was ludicrous to speak as if Hanover

FISHER E

50 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

and England were two separate entities, when Hanoverian
soldiers had fought in the English wars, and when the Hano-
verian forests might supply timber to the English fleets. The
occupation of Hanover by the French armies was a legitimate
move in the game of war ; it was also the only direct and
immediate way in which Napoleon could strike at his rival l.

On March 30, 1803, Napoleon took the first step towards
active intervention in Germany. A despatch of that date
orders Citizen Lacuee, aide de camp to the First Consul, to
make a thorough inspection of Holland, and thence to travel
into Germany. ' You will go to Emden at the mouth of the
Ems, to Bremen at the mouth of the Weser, you will go to
Hanover, Osnabruck, Nimeguen. . . . You will estimate the
strength of the Hanoverian army, and the obstacles which may be
opposed to an invasion V Meanwhile troops were being massed
upon the Channel coast, and on April 18, 1803, General
Monbrichard was ordered to collect at Nimeguen, under the
command of Brigadier-General Frere, six infantry battalions, six
squadrons of cavalry, and a division of eight pieces of artillery.
' It is indispensable,' ran the instructions, ' that this gathering
should be formed without noise or ostentation V By the
beginning of May, some 25,000 troops had been collected in
the north of Holland, under the command of General Mortier,
ready to descend upon the Electorate whenever the expected
ultimatum should be delivered.

The prospect of a French occupation of Hanover was highly
displeasing to the Court of Berlin, since it would involve not
only a violation of the neutrality of Northern Germany, of
which Prussia was the chief guarantor, but also a blockade by
the English of the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe, with
all its consequent drawbacks to Prussian trade. Under these
circumstances there was one course, and one only, which Prussia
could have pursued with credit to herself and with a reasonable

1 The advantages which Napoleon contemplated from the occupation
are summed up by Lucchesini, and expounded by the Emperor himself in
an interesting conversation (Bailleu, ii. 201, 215, 216).

2 Corr. viii. 261-2, no. 6,658. On March 22, Duroc warned the
Prussian Court that Hanover would be occupied by the French in the
event of war (Bailleu, ii. 129). 3 Corr. viii. 283, no. 6,695.

HANOVER 51

prospect of success. At the first shot fired in the Channel,
Frederick William should have thrown his troops into Hanover,
and kept it as a deposit till the end of the war. But the King
of Prussia had not the courage to accept the bold counsels of
Haugwitz, and resorted to the slow medium of negotiation.
He first addressed himself to the Court of St. James's, offering
to take the Electorate under his charge, provided that England
should oppose no obstacle to the free navigation of the Elbe
and the Weser under the Prussian flag. A curt refusal from
London diverted the supplications of the weak king to Paris.
But while the precious hours were wasted in entreaty, the
French troops were advancing in forced marches upon Han-
over \

Imagine a flat and sandy waste, here and there relieved by
tracts of thriving forest and arable land, and only on its
southern boundary by rolling pine-clad hills ; with a few small
towns, the largest, Hanover, containing but 16,500 souls ; with
little trade or commerce; with no political journals; its roads
bad ; its villages collections of miserable huts ; its peasantry, save
in the Elbe marshes and in Hadeln, subject to onerous feudal
services ; its politicians all aristocrats supported by Court offices,
and therefore timorous and dependent ; its towns governed by
narrow and domineering oligarchies ; its University learned but
obsequious ; its industries stifled by guilds, and uninformed by
mechanical or chemical knowledge ; its government, local and
central, a chaos of disparate and independent institutions grown
together by accident and the lapse of time ; its law antique,
barbarous, chaotic — such was the Electorate of Hanover, a
country inhabited by a population more insular than the
English, and long sunk in the lethargy which is the product
of a bad political and social constitution, of consistent neglect,
and of the absence of large national hopes. Under George II
something had been done to rouse the country. The king was
a frequent visitor to Herrenhausen, and the quiet gabled streets
of Hanover were enlivened by the wigs, the uniforms, and the
equipages of the royal Court. The University of Gottingen,
founded in 1737 through the zeal of the learned Mimchhausen,

1 Bailleu, ii. 133, 145 f., 158, 160; Hardenberg, Denkwiirdigkeiten,
ii. 18.

e2

52 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

was a more solid contribution to the welfare of the country, and
did something to civilize a singularly ignorant aristocracy as well
as to provide a training for the statesmen and administrators
of Germany. But the reign of George III was an epoch of
stagnation, though some slight impetus was given to farming
and horse-breeding by the foundation of an agricultural society
and a royal stud at Celle. The king, whose boast it was that
he was born and bred a Briton, never once set foot in his
German dominion, which was left to be governed by a series
of councils. As there was no general assembly for the whole
Electorate, and as every province save one (Diepholz) possessed
its own provincial Estates, which had to be consulted upon all
important questions, administrative celerity was impossible.
Aristocratic bodies are proverbially tenacious of ancient rights
and privileges, and the provincial Estates of Hanover were
aristocratic and obstructive. In the absence of the Elector
the supreme governing body, the Geheime-Rats-Kollegium, had
not the power to override the sinister interests of these local
assemblies, whose opposition was sufficient to thwart any serious
effort to secure reforms.

Indeed it would have been difficult to construct a piece of
machinery more perfectly calculated than the Hanoverian Con-
stitution to defeat progress. The Geheime-Rats-Kollegium, re-
cruiting itself by co-optation from a select circle of aristocratic
families, was not only devoid of personal eminence, but also
paralysed by the extreme subdivision of political power. The
domains, forests, mines, rivers, tolls, and licences, were controlled
by a separate council (the Kammer-Kollegium) responsible only
to the Elector, military arrangements being left to be haggled
over by a commander-in-chief who wanted to spend money,
and a civilian war-chancery bent upon economy. Again,
certain parts of the Electorate, Stade, Ratzeburg, Osnabriick,
although nominally controlled by the Geheime-Rats-Kollegium^
were in reality almost autonomous, possessing their own special
governments. True, members of the Supreme Council presided
over the Chambers that administered the domains and also over
the war-chancery, and some slight reforms in the direction of
increased centralization were made in 1801 and 1802. These
circumstances, however, did not alter the fundamental character

HANOVER 53

of the government. There was no Prime Minister, there was
no tradition of Cabinet ascendency, the members of the govern-
ment represented nobody but themselves. The smallest crisis
was sure to reveal divided aims, flurried counsels, and paltry
ambitions.

This diversified and divided administration was, so to speak,
stained and coloured to a single hue. It was a bureaucracy of
aristocrats, worked for the benefit of the most exclusive aristocracy
in Germany. All valuable posts in the State, military and
civil, were monopolized by the nobles. The provincial Estates,
without whose assent no new tax could be imposed, were every-
where dominated by the nobility, who took good care that none
of the burden of taxation should fall upon themselves. Hence,
although every province had its own peculiar fiscal system, all
systems were agreed upon one point, that the burgher and the
peasant should contribute most. Luckily the government was
mild and its needs were small, and the peasantry, helped by fre-
quent remissions of taxation and by some domestic industries,
was generally able to make ends meet. The condition of the
agricultural population seems, however, to have been the reverse
of prosperous. In Osnabruck the peasant was still a serfj and
when the serf died the lord claimed half of his movable pro-
perty. Insecurity of tenure, feudal dues, inequality of taxation,
patrimonial courts (not to speak of the high corn-prices that
had prevailed in the country since 1780), were more general
influences operating to check the prosperity of the rural poor.
The movement of commerce, impeded by internal customs duties,
by guilds, and by the predominance of English imports, was
not sufficiently brisk to attract the clever young countryman
into the towns. The nobles brought over their luxuries from
London, and it is with some reason that Hanoverian writers
complain that the commercial prosperity of the Electorate was
sacrificed to the English connection.

The repercussion of the French Revolution was felt but faintly
in this sleepy quarter of the world. A few voices were, however,
raised against the regime of aristocratic privilege and the
personal union with England. In 1793 the Hanoverian govern-
ment, becoming conscious of the unpopularity of a poll-tax,
allayed the brewing storm by some concessions to the principle

54 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

of fiscal equality. A little blood was even shed at Osnabr'uck,
and then all seemed to relapse into the accustomed calm. But
questions had been raised and minds exercised, and there was
a growing discontent with absentee rule. In Bremen and Verden,
old possessions of the Swedish Crown, men said that it was
better to be ruled from Stockholm than from London. And
though elsewhere the loyalty to the Guelphic House remained
intact, a feeling was growing up that the Electorate should
be separated from England and transferred to the Duke of
Cambridge, youngest son of George III, who in the early months
of 1803 was serving as inspector of infantry and cavalry in the
Hanoverian army.

Such in brief was the condition of the Electorate when the
news came to Hanover of the rupture of the Peace of Amiens.

The Hanoverian ministry had been expressly told that England
could do nothing for them, but they had made no preparations,
still vainly relying upon assistance from Berlin. On May 22,
people positively asserted in the streets of Hanover that Prussia
was determined to defeftd the Electorate from the French. Two
days earlier the feeble and undecided government had ordered
a levee en masse ; two days later, alarmed by the unpopularity
of the measure, they explained that they had no such intention,
but merely wished to add 15,000 recruits to the army. But
so raw and undisciplined were these hasty levies that after
a week's probation they were dismissed to their homes 1. The
army which General Mortier was leading into Hanover was
composed of seasoned troops, but its numbers did not exceed
17,000 men. With 22,000 regular troops at his command,
half of them experienced veterans, and a park of over fifty
guns, the Hanoverian field -marshal ought to have given
a good account of himself. At best he might expect to fight
on even terms against a force numerically inferior, dangerously
short of ammunition, far weaker in the artillery and cavalry
arms, and operating in an enemy's country -. At worst

1 ( Without uniforms, without discipline, without drill, and incapable of
the commonest movements which require precision, of what use can they
be to us ? ' — A Hanoverian English officer a hundred years ago. Memoirs of
Baron Ompteda, 128.

2 Dumas, Precis des evenements militaires, ix. 187-8 ; Mortier to

HANOVER 55

he might have expected to make good his retreat to Stade,
whence his army might be safely trans-shipped to England.
But the Hanoverian field - marshal was Johann Ludwig von
Wallmoden, an elderly gentleman of seventy-seven, courtly,
well-informed and cultured, but totally lacking in decision and
military promptitude. The son of that Mme. von Wallmoden
who as the mistress of George II has been immortalized in the
memoirs of Lord Hervey, John Louis had owed his promotion
rather to Court favour than to ability. He had seen something
of the camp in the Seven Years' War, and again in 1794, but
his name is not illustrated by a single action of daring or of
skill. As the owner of two fine houses and the best picture-
gallery of the Electorate, Wallmoden occupied a position of
social distinction, from which he looked down with some
contempt upon the civilian members of the Supreme Council.
He was the last man to unite the country, to inspire enthusiasm,
or to lead a forlorn hope.

Rumour swelled the numbers of the advancing Frenchmen to
40,000 or 50,000, and the Hanoverian army on the Weser,
which had been carefully dispersed into four separate de-
tachments, might reasonably feel uneasy at the impending
shock \

On June 1 a small skirmish was fought at Vechtsdam, in
which a dragoon and two horses were wounded, and immediately
the Hanoverian general Lensingen fell back upon Suhlingen.
Meanwhile three emissaries from the Supreme Council were,
with the consent and acquiescence of Wallmoden (so it would
appear), treating with Mortier in the French camp. The
government had decided to capitulate before a blow was struck,
and the commander of the army actually endorsed their decision.

Napoleon, June 3, 1803 : A. F. iv. 1594. The reports of Sir Charles
Gordon are also very instructive {F. 0. , Frontiers of Holland : Secret
Communications, 7). Gordon says of the French, e They had not a
piece of artillery above an eight-pounder ; not a single pontoon ; and
but three companies of artillery of about sixty men each, with not
enough ammunition between Holland and the Weser for an action of two
hours' time.'

1 It is said that the Hanoverian army was commanded not to fire, and
to ( use the bayonet only in the most pressing necessity and with modera-
tion ' (Lebensbilder aus dem Befreiungskriege, i. 202).

\

56 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

On June 3 a convention was signed with the French at Suhlingen,
which stipulated that Hanover and its forts should be occupied
by the French army ; that the Hanoverian forces should retreat
behind the Elbe, and engage not to bear arms against the
French army and its allies so long as the war between France
and England should last ; that all munitions of war were to be
given up to the invaders ; that a French army of occupation,
clothed, supported, and provided with the necessary remounts
by the Hanoverians, was to occupy the Electorate ; that all the
revenues of the Electorate were to be put at the disposition of
the French, who were also to fix a war-contribution for the
support of their army ; that all endowments, save those of the
University, and all properties belonging to the English king
were to be sequestered, and all English soldiers and agents to
be taken to France. The general commandant - in - chief re-
served to himself the power of making such changes as he
should judge suitable in the Hanoverian administration, and
it was agreed that the existing government of the Electorate
should abstain from exercising authority in the country occupied
by the French troops \

This convention was signed by Mortier, 'saving the ap-
probation of the First Consul,' and to the First Consul it was
submitted. But while the ruler of France was gratified with the
ease and celerity with which the Electorate had been occupied,
he was unwilling to ratify the Convention of Suhlingen until
the British government had given their ratification and con-
sented to exchange captive French sailors for the Hanoverian
soldiers who had pledged themselves to take no further part
in the war. For Napoleon the seizure of Hanover was merely
a move in the game against England. He wanted timber for his
ships, horses for his cavalry ; he saw an opportunity of molesting
British commerce, of controlling the mouths of the Weser and
the Elbe, and of destroying some British shipping. Not least,
in the capitulation of Suhlingen, there appeared to be a chance
of an exchange of prisoners such as would reinforce the depleted
crews of the French navy. In order to prevent the possibility
of any evasion of the convention, he ordered the Hanoverian

1 Dumas , Precis des evenemtnts militaires, ix. 392 ff.

HANOVER 57

troops into the Bishopric of Osnabruck, and sent thither General
Dessole with three half-brigades to help Mortier in the task of
supervision. Until the decision of his Britannic Majesty was
known, the Hanoverian army was not to be permitted to retreat
across the Elbe *.

As the Cabinet of St. James's declined to ratify the con-
vention, Napoleon ordered Mortier to disarm the Hanoverian
army, to dismount the cavalry, and to send cavalry and infantry
alike as prisoners of war into France 2. Provisions were running
short in the Hanoverian camp, and though 11,000 of his men
were eager to contest the passage of the Elbe, Wallmoden
determined to treat3. It might be argued in defence of this
resolution that since the army had already agreed to abstain from
any further participation in the war with France, there was not
much harm in going a step further and consenting to be dis-
armed and disbanded. The general feeling of the country was
against fighting, and the Landstande declared that they would
no longer pay the troops if they were foolish enough to offer
a patriotic resistance to the invaders. Considerations of the
pocket were more potent than the dictates of honour, and when
Mortier withdrew the proposal that the men should be sent
into France as prisoners of war there was no difficulty in coming
to an agreement 4. By the Elbe Convention, sometimes called
the Convention of Artlenburg, which was signed July 5, 1803,
the Hanoverian army was dissolved, its horses, guns, and arms
ceded to France, and its officers put under pledge not to leave
the Continent 5. About a thousand men of a higher spirit than
their comrades escaped to Stade, where they were taken up by
some British ships and transported to England. This was the
origin of that Hanoverian Legion which earned such high
distinction in the Peninsular War.

'Citizen Lieutenant-General Mortier,' wrote Bonaparte on
July 11, 1803, ' I approve of the convention which you have
made, since it fulfils my political object, and spares the
blood of a great number of brave men. I recommend you to

1 Corr. viii. 357-8, no. 6,821-2.

2 lb., 363, no. 6,835. 8 A. F. iv. 1594.
4 Ompteda, 159-63 ; Dumas, ix. 219.

6 Dumas, ix. 395-7.

58 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

be inflexible in its execution, not to suffer in any manner the
introduction of mails, couriers, or English merchandise into the
country which you occupy either in the Elbe or the Weser. . . .
Send us horses into France, especially for the heavy cavalry.
If there are two or three hundred for the guard, send them
to Paris. Take care to disarm the country ; and shut up all
the arms in strongholds until you can get them sent into
France V

Baron Risbeck, writing in 1780, describes Hanover as the most
miserable country in Germany ; ' I cannot conceive,"1 he says,
' how our troops can have lived in this country during the last
Silesian war V Nor had the lapse of a score of years materially
altered the situation. The revenue of the Electorate all told
only amounted to twelve million livres, and of this sum half was
devoted to the payment of the army and the interest on the debt.
There seemed to be no fresh economies to be practised, no fresh
sources of wealth to be explored. The income derived from
the private domains of the Elector had been wholly expended
upon public objects within the Electorate, and the separation
from England did not in consequence bring an extra penny
into the Hanoverian exchequer. Two French naval officers
inspected the forests, and reported that the wood was too tender
to be used in ship-building. The subordinate officials were
perhaps over-numerous, but the French had to admit that their
salaries were small, and that the accounts of the Electorate
were signalized by the greatest order and by a general spirit
of economy. For the government of the Elector the French
came to entertain a certain respect. ' Hanover,' writes the
Intendant-General of the Grand Army, ' resembles a family
submitted to feudal but paternal regulations, rather than a State
governed by laws of constraint."1 The hospitals were pronounced
excellent ; the prisons ' sanitary , ; the prisoners well fed ; * the
regime very humane.1 Specialists reported that the forests were
admirably managed. There was hardly any crime or litigation,
and, though the technical rights of the landlord were extensive,
the French admitted that they were softened in practice by
clemency and good feeling. It was remarked that ' an hereditary

1 Corr. viii. 398, no. 6/J04.

2 Voyages en Allemagne, iii. 114.

HANOVER 59

probity ' was a general characteristic of Hanoverian officials, and
the observer was inclined to attribute this pleasing feature to
'the beneficence of the government, to good examples, and to
domestic education.1 A few timid and obsequious remarks at
the beginning of the French occupation seem to have led some
Frenchmen to believe that the English connection was universally
unpopular, but the error was profound and soon dissipated. The
Hanoverians were patient ; • we cannot reproach them with any
complaint, any murmur, any act,1 says an official report in 1807,
4 but they maintain an attachment to their government which
they do not dissimulate. They are obedient to the conqueror,
but they sigh for peace, and hope that it will restore them to
their Elector V

It was not the intention of the First Consul to take over the
government of the country or to present it with a new legal
and institutional equipment. So long as Hanover supported
his army of occupation, so long as it was closed to the English
merchant and the English recruiting sergeant, he was content
to allow the old machinery to creak along its accustomed
grooves. But to obtain the required supplies it was clearly
necessary to construct a new wheel in the administration which
should revolve alike more rapidly and more obediently than
the rusty engines of the Electoral polity. A small Executive
Commission, consisting of Hanoverians conversant with the
finance of the country, was formed by General Mortier, and
entrusted with the task of extracting the necessary supplies.
The orders of the general to the Executive Commission
were transmitted by a government commissary, C. F. Durbach
by name, who had been an administrator in the Rhenish
districts, and was acquainted with both the French and
German tongues. Not a penny could be expended by the
Executive Commission without Durbach's sanction, and measures
were taken to prevent any possible source of taxation from
lying hid. It was Durbacfrs duty to take stock of all the
revenues of the Elector, the Estates and the bailiwicks, of all
British property, of all taxes, charges, and possible resources,
and to report upon the relative wealth of the different districts

1 Affaires etranyeres, Correspondance politique : Brunswick et Hanovre, 54.

60 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

of the Electorate. He was to render a daily account of his
operations to the general ; he was empowered to attend
and to preside over the Executive Commission ; and he was
charged to transmit all sums received to the payeur general of
the army. By this contrivance Mortier obtained an independent
estimate of the resources of the country, a supply of well-
instructed Hanoverian advice, and a complete control over
the revenue and expenditure of the Electorate. All else was
allowed to pursue its ancient course.

It is difficult to know whether to applaud or to condemn
the bovine acquiescence of the Hanoverian population under
the French yoke. Mortier^ soldiery, despite the fly-leaves
sold in the London streets, appears to have been well in
hand, and we believe that there were few outrageous breaches
of discipline1. Both Mortier and Bernadotte (who succeeded
him in the command) were naturally humane, and did what
they could to apply emollients to the wound. But the
malady of military billeting and financial extortion remained
persistent and exasperating. A small landowner in the
county of Hoya, with a rent-roll of some 10,000 francs, found
himself obliged to entertain a colonel, an officer, ten horses,
and three servants, at a monthly charge of 960 livres. The
town of Hanover had a garrison of more than 4,000 men, an
addition equal to nearly a fourth of its civilian population,
and it must have been difficult to look on to the street of
any Hanoverian town or village without catching sight of
a French uniform. In the first three years of the French
occupation, according to the unimpeachable evidence of a
French statistical survey, the Electorate had paid into the army
chest 67,230,000 francs and increased its debt by 22,000,000,
and all this time the ordinary sources of revenue were drying
up. The product of the customs had diminished by a third,
owing to the interruption of commerce. Agriculture was half
paralysed by the withdrawal of horses, carts, and cattle for
military purposes, and by 1807 the total yield of taxation had

1 This is confirmed by Gordon, who speaks in high terms of the conduct
of the French soldiers (F. 0. , Frontiers of Holland : Secret Communica-
tions, 7). The atrocities of the Annual Register are borrowed from an
imaginative fly-sheet.

HANOVER 61

fallen from twelve to nine millions, ' and,' says a French report,
4 it cannot be increased.''

The difficulties of the financial situation were so glaring, and
the good faith of the Hanoverians was so obvious, that it was
clear either that the army of occupation must be reduced or
that fresh sources of supply must be obtained outside the
Electorate. But to reduce the army of occupation was the
one thing to which Napoleon would not consent. ' It must
consist,' he wrote to Mortier (August 4, 1803), 6 of from thirty
to thirty-five thousand men, and must be nourished for a long
time by the country.1 The Hanoverian envoys in Paris vainly
protested, mingling base assurances of hostility to England
with their pleas. The First Consul gave them fair words :
he did not wish the unfortunate people to be ruined ; he
would 'withdraw his troops and make the country feel the
effects of his protection and his clemency.' But no substantial
reduction was ever made. The army of occupation averaged
from 25,000 to 30,000 men, more than twice as many as the
revenues of the country would support. And in addition there
were large requisitions of horses for the use of the artillery *.

There remained the expedient of a loan. The credit of the
Executive Commission, necessarily slight, was diminished by
the fact that several members of the old Regency had taken
refuge in the neighbouring Duchy of Mecklenburg, and fostered
a belief in an approaching Guelphic restoration. But the
property of the King of England in the Electorate was valued
at 200,000,000 livres, and it was suggested to the Minister
of War that a loan issued upon this security and backed by the
name of the First Consul would be readily taken up by the
Hanseatic towns or by the neighbouring princes 2.

The three Hanseatic towns, Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck,
had preserved their ancient independence through the critical

1 Corr. viii. 443, no. 6,981 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr. pol. : Brunswick
et Hanovre, 54, and Hamburg, 118. Bernadotte wrote to Napoleon
(July 20, 1805) : ' If the army could be reduced to 15,000 men with staff in
proportion, then by means of great economy and a loan of two millions
a year it would be possible to make the two ends meet.'

2 Leopold Berthier to the Minister of War, Sept. 22, 1803. Affaires
etrangereSy Corr. pol. : Brunswick et Hanovre, 54.

62 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

years immediately following the Peace of Luneville, when so
many free cities of the Empire had been forced to part with
their political sovereignty. Rumour said that the miracle had
been accomplished not without large douceurs to Talleyrand and
to the officials of the French Foreign Office concerned with the
affair of the German compensations1. Certainly to the three
towns themselves the object would have seemed fully worth
large pecuniary sacrifices. The Hanseatic cities were proud of
their traditions, and rightly jealous of an independence dating
back to the days of the Hohenstauffen Emperors. Nowhere
was public spirit stronger or the art of municipal government
more fully understood than in Hamburg. The commercial
glory of Liibeck had indeed departed, and Bremen had not yet
begun to participate in the advantages derived from a line of
steamers to the North American shore, but judged by the
standard of the times the three cities were prosperous, cultivated,
and well governed. While the French conquest of Belgium and
Holland during the revolutionary wars had temporarily eclipsed
the prosperity of Antwerp and Amsterdam, the opulence of
Hamburg rose by leaps and bounds. Though the streets were
unlighted and unpaved, the feasts of the merchant-princes were
worthy of Lucullus. It was currently said that you should
breakfast in Scotland, sup in France, but dine at Hamburg, and
that nowhere else in Europe could you order thirty-two wines
from your merchant and have them all good2. The Com-
mentaries of a critic of genius will not permit us to forget that
the first experiment of a national German theatre was made
at Hamburg, and the visitor who gazes upon the loaded barges,
the grim warehouses, and the dark and tortuous canals of this
Northern Venice, may feel that Lessing's onslaught on the
classical canons of French dramatic art is not inappropriate to
the Teutonic genius of the place.

The outbreak of the war between France and England was

1 ' At Paris M. Abel presented to M. de Talleyrand and to M. Markoff
a box en email containing 24,000 francs in notes, &c.' — Hirsinger to
Maret, Oct. 5, 1804. A. F. iv. 1706 b.

2 A Journal of the Defence of Hamburg : London, 1832. The popula-
tion of the three cities at this time was as follows :— Hamburg, 115,000 ;
Bremen, 45,000 ; Liibeck, 40,000. A. F. iv. 1706 b.

HANOVER 63

a serious blow to communities whose prosperity largely depended
upon the carrying trade. The blockade of the Weser and the Elbe
by the English was answered by the French, who threatened to
confiscate all English wares transmitted to the fairs of Frankfort
and Leipzig. Yet the Hanseatic burghers, realizing that loss
was inevitable, hoped by strict economy and a conscientious
preservation of neutrality to avert the ruin that had swept
over the neighbouring Electorate. But if they expected to be
let alone by the French, their disappointment must have been
great, for not only did the French occupy Cuxhaven (which
belonged to Hamburg) but they proceeded to demand a
loan \

Of all forms of investment which could have haunted the
mind of a Hanseatic burgher in November 1803, none was
likely to have been more distasteful than a loan for the support
of the French army of occupation in Hanover. The security
was dubious and the purpose was hateful. But Hamburg
was left no choice. 'General Berthier,' wrote an English
agent, 'said that he was no diplomat, that he must have
an immediate answer — yes or no,' and the Senate of Hamburg
lent the three million marks at the point of the bayonet 2. The
First Consul was indignant that a loan should have been con-
tracted by French military officers without his authorization,
and the terms of the convention were so compromising that
he insisted upon its revision. 'This loan is badly made,' he
wrote ; ' it did not belong to French dignity to send a general
to make this loan ; that degrades the character of a general.
If the loan was to be made openly, an officer of inferior rank
should have been sent, accompanied by an agent of the treasury.
But it would have been much better that the loan should
have been made by the Estates (of Hanover) and in their
name, and that General Mortier should only have ostensibly
intervened as a guarantor V Accordingly the order went out

1 Corr. viii. 425, no. 6,956. ' Cuxhaven restait un objet de discorde
qui eut compromis Hambourg si les Anglais avaient su y entrer et s'y
comporter avec l'arrogance qui les caracterise. '

2 Rumbold to Hawkesbury, Nov. 13, 1803. F. 0., Hamburg, 24.
A mark was 16d. sterling.

3 Corr. ix. 120-1, 123-4, nos. 7,336, 7,340-1.

64 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

that the Estates of Hanover should be the contracting party,
and that the loan should be hypothecated solely upon the
domains of the King of England. If the Estates refused,
France must have recourse to war impositions upon the
Electorate.

To mortgage the private domain of the King of England
was as repugnant to the Hanoverian Estates, as the issue of
a loan based upon the mortgage was distasteful to Hamburg,
but circumstances were imperious, and it was an ill season for
the punctilios of loyalism. The Estates borrowed and Ham-
burg lent, and the French army consumed. In this way
a violent situation was regularized in the eyes of diplomatic
Europe.

When Bernadotte succeeded to the command of the Hano-
verian army in July 1804, he found the pay of the soldiers
four months in arrear, and no more than 200,000 francs in hand.
It was necessary again to demand money from outside. Vainly
did Hamburg plead her deserted quays, her emptied store-
rooms, and point to the fact that the first loan had only been
covered by the forced advances of her wealthier burghers l.
When Bremen grumbled and haggled, such of her merchants
as happened to be travelling in the Electorate were arrested
and their goods confiscated by the French soldiers, and when
this device failed Bernadotte informed the Senate that if at
the end of twenty-four hours it had not sanctioned the loan,
every citizen of Bremen found upon Hanoverian territory
would be treated as a spy and shot2.

It was not sufficient that these sovereign towns should be
forcibly compelled to lend money to a foreign aggressor upon
doubtful security. They were placed under the strict super-
vision of the French police. ' In a town like Hamburg,' wrote
Bonaparte, December 26, 1803, ' the police ought to have not
one spy but ten3.' The agent of the French Republic,

1 Bernadotte to Talleyrand, July 11, 1804. Answer of the Senate
of Hamburg, July 27, 1804. Affaires etrangeres, Corr. pol. : Ham-
burg, 118.

2 Reinhard to Talleyrand, Aug. 4, 1804, and Sept. 2, 1804. Reinhard,
the French agent, speaks of the c ridiculous and inconceivable obstinacy '
of Bremen. Affaires etrangeres, Corr. pol. : Hamburg, 118.

3 Corr. ix. 173, no. 7,428.

HANOVER 65

M. Reinhard, a Wurtemberger by birth but a Frenchman in
sympathy, was to be entrusted with the duty of enforcing the
rigorous neutrality of the Hanseatic towns. It was his duty
to delate Englishmen and emigres, and to command the suppres-
sion of papers and pamphlets offensive to the First Consul.
The Senates of Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck knew too well
the kind of sanction which underlay the representations of the
French minister, and it must be confessed that Bonaparte
encouraged no diplomatic illusions. ' Recommend M. Reinhard,'
so he wrote to Talleyrand, August 18, 1804, 'to be more
active in suppressing the insolence of the towns of Bremen
and Hamburg. It is with regret that the Emperor will
find himself obliged, if they continue to manage their police so
ill, to send 8,000 or 10,000 men to manage it for them.' The
answer to this threat was the prompt suppression of an offend-
ing journal, coupled with the punishment of its unfortunate
printer *.

The French men of business might well be alarmed at these
high-handed proceedings, for at that time no less than one-
sixth of the foreign trade of France was done with the
Hanseatic towns, who distributed through Central and Eastern
Europe the wines, the brandies, and the silks of the Re-
public. Since, with trifling exceptions, all this trade was
carried on by Dutch or German vessels, it would be at once
interrupted by English cruisers, if the free cities were forced
by Napoleon to abandon their attitude of neutrality. But
considerations of this frigid type had little or no weight in
the policy of the Consulate. One day before the breach of
the Treaty of Amiens, Napoleon observed with a smile to the
Council of State, that the First Consul was not like the
kings by the grace of God. Their power was assisted
by ancient habits. With him it was the opposite. Ancient
habits were so many obstacles. 'The French government

1 Corr. ix. 476, no. 7,943 ; Reinhard to Talleyrand, September 7, 1804,
Affaires etrangeres, Hamburg, 118. At the baths of Travemiinde, in the
territory of Lubeck, a certain Count von Bodmer called upon the
musicians to strike up l God save the King.' Reinhard intimated to the
Senate that if this happened again, he would get Bernadotte to send
a French sergeant afin de mieux maintenir la neutrality. Reinhard to
Talleyrand, July 20, 1804.

FISHER P

66 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

to-day has nothing in common with the government of yester-
day. It has need of action, of brilliance, and consequently
of war1.'

1 J. H. Lasalle, De la neutrality des villes anseatiques, 1803 (Brit.
Mus., R. 300) ; Marco de Saint-Hilaire, Napoleon au Conseil d'etat,
i. 154-5.

Principal Authorities : Thimme, Die inner en Zustande des Kurfilrsten-
thums Hannover unter der franzbsisch-westphdlischen Herrschaft ; A. W.
Ward, Great Britain and Hanover ; Havemann, Das Kurfiirstenthum
Hannover unter zehnj'dhriger Fremdherrschqft ; Ompteda, Memoirs ; Bailleu,
Preussen und Frankreich ; Dumas, Precis des evenements militaires.

CHAPTER IV

THE CONSPIRACY AND THE RAIDS

fEst-ce que vous croyez, citoyen ministry que parce que je suis a
Malmaison, je ne sais rien ? Je ne me repose pas sur la police moi ! . . .
Je fais ma police moi-meme, et si la votre veille, comme vous le dites,
moi aussi je veille, et souvent jusqu'a deux heures apres minuit.'

Napoleon.

Master of Belgium and Holland, of the Rhine provinces and
Hanover, and real though informal head of a client group of
German princes, the First Consul began to regard Germany as
annexed to his system. In the war which had broken out
between France and England, Germany must show unequivocal
devotion to French interests. English intrigue, English goods,
English emissaries must be excluded from the continent, and
Great Britain must be exhibited to the world as the outlaw
race, violating the law of nations, both by land and sea, and
unworthy of honest or respectable friendships. It is possible to
discern all the lineaments of the continental system in the
policy pursued by Napoleon in 1804.

The English government had from the first proclaimed its
devotion to the cause of the Bourbons, and it made no secret of
its desire to overturn the Consulate and restore the ancient
monarchy of France. Not only were the Count of Artois,
the Duke of Berry, and the Prince of Conde living in England,
but England was still the asylum of those royalist emigres
who had not yet been erased from the lists of emigration and
permitted to return to France. Just as the First Consul tried
to stir up sedition in Ireland, so the government of George III
paid money to assist in fomenting disturbances in Brittany and
the Vendee. Napoleon wrote to the Pope to ask him what
means of influencing public opinion in Ireland might be at his
disposition. The English government relied upon royalist
and Jacobin conspirators. Neither government would have

f2

68 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

stooped to encourage assassination, but it was considered fair
at that time for belligerent powers not only to acquire all
possible information through spies as to the plans and intentions
of their adversaries, but also directly to foster insurrection and
civil war in the dominions of their foe \

The rupture of the relations between France and England
fanned the hopes of the exiles into sudden flame, but their
plans now assumed a shape which was at once more promising
and more criminal than those in which they previously had
indulged. The Vendee and Brittany were exhausted, the
south was pacified, there was no hope of any general royalist
rising. But a blow might be struck in Paris itself and at the
person of the First Consul. It was known that there was
a Jacobin party in the city which deeply resented the suppres-
sion of republican liberties, and it was believed that the whole
network of Jacobin influence through France was still extant
and capable of being used for royalist ends. 'Jacobinism,'
wrote Bertrand de Moleville, one of the most fanatical of the
exiles, ' is the first instrument of the counter-revolution. We
must restore general disorganization and the kind of chaos
from which the Revolution issued.' In this unnatural alliance
between the two extremes of political thought it was hoped
that General Moreau might be included. The victor of
Hohenlinden was the most popular soldier in the army : he
was known to cherish republican memories, and in his sulky
retirement at Grosbois he made no effort to conceal his jealousy
and his chagrins. It was believed that he could be induced,
through the solicitations of his former friend Pichegru, to enter
into the plot, or at any rate that he could be hopelessly com-
promised. His great name would win the army. The crucial
undertaking, however, was not to be left to the accomplishment
of Jacobin or republican hands. A bold Breton desperado,
Georges Cadoudal, with a band of hardy Chouans, was to
attack the First Consul and his escort and to vanquish them in
fair fight. In this struggle Bonaparte would be killed or

1 ' It is the acknowledged right of belligerent powers to avail themselves
of any discontents existing in the countries with which they may happen
to be at war.' — Circular note of Lord Hawkesbury, April 30, 1804.
Annual Register, 1804; 215.

THE CONSPIRACY AND THE RAIDS 69

captured. Two Bourbon princes, the Count of Artois and the
Duke of Berry, would then appear in France to direct the
royalist movements. In the wilds of Brittany men would have
already descended to stir the old white furies, and with the
French Cromwell down and dead, would not Moreau step out
of the shadow to play the part of Monk ? Such were the
outlines of the conspiracy.

There was a certain villain who had acted as secretary to
the Commune and is said to have been concerned in the
September massacres, by name Mehee de la Touche. This
man, who had been imprisoned by the Consular government
as a Jacobin, arrived in England in February 1803, representing
himself as an enemy to Bonaparte, and was received into the
counsels of the royalists. It was he who inspired their hopes
of Jacobin help, and it is probably to him that the conspiracy
owed much of its actual shape. But while plotting with the
royalists in London Mehee was also in the pay of the French
police, and through him Napoleon was made aware of the
details of the plot. We need not blame the First Consul for
regarding it as outrageous and wicked. We need not question
the reality or appropriateness of his indignation. It was in
truth flat murder thinly disguised ; had it been successful it
must have led to the utter disorganization of France. That
the plot of Georges should have received the full sanction of
the Prince of Artois is an indelible blot on the reputation of the
Bourbon House, and it is deeply to be regretted that ^3000
of English money should have been expended in subsidizing
the rising in the west, which was a subsidiary feature in this
criminal enterprise K

Napoleon, once aroused, pursued the trail of conspiracy
with the zest of a practised sleuthhound. His letters to
Regnier and Fouche are full of directions that So-and-so
should be watched, So-and-so imprisoned, So-and-so banished.
He dictates instructions to Mehee, for the plot is a plant of
great political promise, which must be watered, encouraged,
and allowed to develop to maturity. The Bourbons must be
exposed, the English government implicated, and a blow struck
to teach Europe manners. Ces miser ables Anglais nous por-
1 J. H. Rose, The Life of Napoleon I, i. 451-2.

i

70 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

tent la corruption sur toute la cote, he writes, March 12, 1804 1.
English spies at Genoa, English intrigues in Munich, an 'in-
undation' of English spies and agents in Hanover, emigres at
Frankfort and Hamburg, an Anglophile paper in Holland, one
English agent plotting an insurrection in the four departments,
another brewing evil with a French abbe at Stuttgart, 6 & sub-
terranean working at Brest and Boulogne, which in two towns
so far apart can only be the work of English agents ' — he sees,
or professes to see, perfidious Albion everywhere spinning her
treacherous and all-embracing nets 2.

Meanwhile the plot ripened. On August 21, 1803, Georges
with the first detachment of conspirators disembarked at Biville,
and his men found their way by separate routes to Paris.
A second detachment followed in December, a third in January.
In September and October a few accomplices had been arrested,
but there was no certain evidence against them. They were
interrogated, but revealed nothing. On January 21, 1804, the
First Consul determined to bring the men before a military com-
mission, and one of them, Kerouelles, turning craven on the
place of execution, made a clean breast of what he knew,
and declared that Georges was in Paris. Immediately after-
wards one Troche, on being arrested by the police, announced
that a fourth detachment was about to land, headed by a
Prince of the Bourbon House, and Savary, in disguise, was
despatched to watch the coast. Indeed every piece of fresh
evidence seemed to implicate the Princes, and to reveal a
conspiracy more formidable than had been expected. A myste-
rious person about forty years of age and disguised in a long
cloak used to visit Georges, so ran the report of some Chouans
who were arrested on February 9. Surely he must be a prince ?
A man called Bouvet de Lozier, one of Georges1 lieutenants,
attempted suicide, failed, and with broken nerves confessed the
whole story to Real — how Georges and Pichegru had disem-
barked, how Monsieur (the Count of Artois) was to come to
Paris, how Moreau had met Pichegru and Georges by moonlight
in the Boulevard de la Madeleine. It was time to strike. On

1 Corr. ix. 285, no. 7,614.

2 lb. 190, no. 7,462 ; 272, no. 7,594 ; 274, no. 7,598 ; 299, no. 7,633 ;
329, no. 7,690 ; 354, no. 7,739.

THE CONSPIRACY AND THE RAIDS 71

February 15 the warrant for Moreau's arrest was signed. On
February 28 Pichegru was betrayed. On March 9 Georges was
taken after a desperate struggle. The Moniteur, March 10,
declared that Georges had confessed that his mission was to
assassinate the First Consul.

All the principal conspirators, save the Princes, were now in
the hands of the First Consul, yet on the theory of the police
the role assigned to the Princes was hardly less important than
that of the Jacobins and the Chouans. It was in vain that the
coast was watched. The Princes did not land, could not be
found. The depositions were disappointing, for it was clear
that Moreau was barely compromised, and Georges stoutly and
persistently denied that the plot was one of assassination. The
First Consul was determined to put a stop once and for all to
these detestable dealings. On March 10 he wrote to Berthier
ordering the seizure of the Due d'Enghien.

This young man, the grandson of the Prince of Conde, was
living at Ettenheim near Strasburg, a place in the territory of
the Grand Duchy of Baden. He had served in the emigrant
armies, was in receipt of a pension from England, and had
requested permission to join an English regiment, but he was
probably ignorant of this conspiracy and entirely unconnected
with it. His residence at Ettenheim was well known to be
caused by an attachment to a lady — Princess Charlotte de
Rohan — to whom, in fact, he was secretly married, and also by
the neighbourhood of the Black Forest, which afforded him
facilities for sport. The ingenuity of the French police had,
however, woven his name into the fatal web. On February 28
Mehee told Real that some general officers of the army of
Conde had come to OfFenburg, a village in the neighbourhood
of Ettenheim, to concert measures with the Due d'Enghien.
Accordingly the prefect of Strasburg, acting on instructions
from Paris, sent a non-commissioned officer of gendarmerie
named Lamothe to watch the Prince. Lamothe reported that
the Prince was at Ettenheim in the company of Dumouriez and
a Lieutenant Smith, recently arrived from England, and that
he was corresponding actively with OfFenburg, in which place
there was a number of emigres. Shee, the prefect of Strasburg,
forwarded this report to Real in a covering letter which stated

72 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

that the Duke had made frequent visits to Strasburg and
Benfelden, and expatiated on the intrigues of the emigres
of Offenburg and of their directress the Baroness von Reich.
A certain Levidant, arrested as a Chouan in Paris, avowed that
he had seen a young man about thirty, well-clad, with dis-
tinguished manners, visit Georges at Chaillot. He had im-
mediately supposed that the young man 'might well be the
Prince of whom he had heard speak.' Combining these scattered
clues, the police arrived at the theory that the Due d'Enghien
had paid a flying visit to Paris to direct the plot.

Maria Eleanora Cecilia Reich von Platz had corresponded
with Pichegru, and was the centre of a little coterie of emigres
who lived at Offenburg. It was said, too, that she served as
intermediary between Conde and Fauche Borel, a well-known
royalist conspirator. From the beginning of March she had
been under close observation. French gendarmes in disguise
were lodging in the town, changing their names and their
quarters every two days. On March 7 Regnier, the Grand- Judge,
drew Napoleon's attention to the conspirators at Offenburg,
and recommended a demand for their immediate extradition,
and on March 10 Talleyrand wrote to Edelsheim, the minister
of Baden, enclosing a copy of this report, and formally demand-
ing 'that the individuals who composed this committee at
Offenburg should be arrested and delivered with their papers to
French officers, charged to receive them at Strasburg.' The
French Minister of Foreign Affairs further required * that by a
general and irrevocable measure all the French emigres should be
removed from the countries which compose the Electorate of
Baden,' explicitly basing his order on the first article of the
Treaty of Luneville, which provided that 'No help or protec-
tion shall be given either directly or indirectly to those who
may wish to injure one or other of the contracting parties.'
' It is evident,' he remarked, ' that they (the emigres) are a class
of persons who, according to the terms of the Treaty of Lune-
ville, ought not to find asylum or protection in the Germanic
States. Their exclusion is then a matter of strict right.'
Whether the words of the treaty will bear this interpretation
may be a matter for discussion * ; but in truth all argument

1 fIl ne sera donne aucun secours et protection soit directement soit

THE CONSPIRACY AND THE RAIDS 73

was something of a superfluity. On the very day on which
Talleyrand wrote the letter to Edelsheim, Napoleon took the
question of the Baroness von Reich into his own hands. With-
out waiting for the answer of the Court of Baden, he ordered
General Caulaincourt to surround the town of Offenburg, and to
seize her and the other agents of the Britannic government.

Rarely has a more complete insult been offered to a friendly
power. The territory of Baden was suddenly, without warning,
invaded by a little army of 800 men, provided with food and
ammunition for four days. Two towns belonging to the Elector
were surrounded in the dead of night, and several persons
forcibly carried off into France without any formal act of
extradition. A French agent assumed the uniform of Baden
to create the impression that the government of Karlsruhe was
a consenting party, and assisted the operations at Offenburg.
At Ettenheim two native officials presumed to expostulate with
the French commanding officer, and to ask the cause of this
extraordinary violation of neutral territory. General Ordener
replied that he did not know himself, that it was an affair of
State, and that his Serene Highness of Baden had been in-
formed of the movement the evening before. He added, said
these officials, 'that we were to keep quite quiet, for he had
three guns with him, and at the least uprising would im-
mediately order them to open fire on the burghers1.' The
Due d'Enghien, a lieutenant of the Conde regiment named
Schmid, the Baroness von Reich, General de Thumery, Colonel
von Griinstein, and eight other persons were driven away
across the border. On March 20, after a perfunctory trial
before a military tribunal, the Duke was shot in the moat of
Vincennes 2.

Thirty-four hours after the event the government of Karls-
ruhe received the news of this astonishing raid. The Elector

indirectement a ceux qui voudraient porter prejudice a l'une ou a l'autre des
parties contractantes. ' The French ministers in Germany had orders to
demand the expulsion of all emigres, which implies that every emigre was
a conspirator. Erdmannsdorffer, v. 21.

1 Id., v. 10.

2 Lamothe had confused Thumery with Dumouriez, but Napoleon was
aware of the error before d'Enghien's execution. Boulay de la Meurthe,
Les demieres annees du due d'Enghien, 203-20.

74 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

was an old man with an amiable philosophy of life, and a
rooted disinclination to navigate rough waters. He had corre-
sponded with the elder Mirabeau upon economics, and even
carried out in his own margraviate an interesting experiment in
physiocratic finance. The historians of Baden wax eloquent
when they describe the beneficent intentions and the en-
lightened rule of Charles Frederick, whose chief aim had been
to exemplify in his own government and person the ideas of the
reigning French philosophy. He was now, after taking part
in the wars against the French Revolution, at peace with the
Consulate, and no act of subservience to Napoleon was too
abject for him or his timid ministers 1.

All that the French demanded was granted. No sooner was
Talleyrand's letter received than a decree was issued banishing
all French emigrants from the territory of Baden. ' This docu-
ment,' says a Dutch diplomat who then happened to be in
Paris, ' closed the mouths of the defenders of the Elector.' The
only reproach the government of Charles Frederick dared to
make was confined to a statement in the preamble of the
decree, to the effect that the arrests had been carried out
unexpectedly and without its knowledge. In the Moniteur the
text of the decree was altered, so that the Elector might
appear to be a consenting party to the raid. The minister of
Baden in Paris, the Baron von Dalberg, attempted to redress the
error, but no journalist was bold enough to contradict the
organ of Napoleon. Nor did the Baron inform his Court
officially of the raid till March 20, and then in language which
suggested a source of embarrassment rather than a crying
scandal. The Court of Karlsruhe, instead of protesting bravely,
apologized with baseness, and Talleyrand, mingling mendacity
with arrogance, told Dalberg that the raid had been undertaken
'to save the Elector from embarrassment,' and complained of
the 'incredible things' which were said at Karlsruhe. So
terrified was Charles Frederick at the wrath of the French
that he 'highly disapproved' of the 'licence' with which his

1 Drais, Geschichte der Regierung und Bildung von Baden unter Carl
Friedrich ; the biographies of Kleinschmidt, Nebenius, and Vierordt ;
Carl Friedrich' s brief licher Verkehr mit Mirabeau, edited for the ( Badische
Historische Commission ' in 1892.

THE CONSPIRACY AND THE RAIDS 75

subjects treated the theme. When the King of Sweden,
Gustavus IV, who was the son-in-law of the Elector, and at
that time living at Karlsruhe, openly expressed his abhorrence,
certain persons of the Court came to the French agent, and
prayed him to convey to the First Consul that 'the sojourn of
the King of Sweden at Karlsruhe was in many respects a burden
to his Electoral Serenity.'' The Emperor of Russia, who was
chivalrous, powerful, and distant, lodged an energetic protest
(May 6) with the Diet of Ratisbon against the violation of
the territory of Baden. But the Elector of Baden, instead of
hailing such a pronouncement with joy, was struck dumb with
terror. He thanked Russia for her excellent intentions, but
at the same time supplicated the Diet, in terms prescribed by
Talleyrand himself, to drop the subject in the interests of
European peace. He had received, so ran the memoir, 'suffi-
ciently tranquillizing information.' 'The knife was at our
throat,' wrote Dalberg, who drafted these hollow words ; ' how
could we refuse what they required of us ? ' As Napoleon
remarked, ' It was for the sovereign of Baden alone to complain,
and he has not done so.' The First Consul also freely said that
the sovereign of Baden had been warned, and that the arrests
had his consent.

The other German powers emulated though they could not
surpass the fulsome acquiescence of Baden. Berlin society was
indignant, but the cowardly government did not dare to protest.
Austria was not in a position to fight, for her finances and
army were alike disorganized, and the Archduke Charles was in
favour of peace. She refrained from influencing the German Diet,
declined to notice the protest of Louis XVIII, and expelled the
French emigres from Swabia and the Breisgau. ' If you are not
pleased with my ministers,' said Francis to Champagny, ' let me
know, and I will dismiss them.' But, nevertheless, behind this
loudly advertised complaisance, the House of Hapsburg was
reforming her relations with England and Russia1.

If such was the conduct of the great powers, what could be
expected of the small ones ? It was not for them to uphold the
dignity of the Reich when Baden acquiesced and Prussia and
Austria thought well to be silent. An incident shortly revealed

1 Erdmannsdorffer, v. 1-124.

76 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

in the clearest light the subservience of Germany. The English
envoys who happened at this time to be accredited respectively
to the Courts of Munich, Stuttgart, and Hesse-Cassel, were
Francis Drake, Spencer-Smith, and Brook Taylor. These three
gentlemen were not only using their positions to procure in-
formation as to the internal condition of France, and the plans
of Bonaparte — which would have been legitimate — but were
also actively engaged in intrigues with royalist conspirators.
There is no evidence that any one of them had knowledge of an
assassination plot ; indeed, Drake expressly denied having had
such knowledge. But they wished to promote active disaffec-
tion, especially in the army, against the person and government
of the First Consul, and Drake's instructions, as given in the
Moniteur, are scarcely creditable to his employers.

Napoleon was aware of these foolish and culpable proceedings.
The British ministers at the Courts of Munich and Stuttgart
had allowed themselves to be involved in a compromising
correspondence with the agents of the French police ; and the
notorious Mehee, his imagination quickened by the careful
promptings of the First Consul himself, extracted from Drake
some written indiscretions, which, together with the secret
instructions of the British government, were printed in the
Moniteur on March 25. A long report from the pen of the
Grand-Judge Regnier accompanied these documents, and held
up the British government to execration. It was represented
that the true object of Drake's mission to Munich was to
' recruit agents of intrigue, of revolt, of assassination, to make
a war of brigandage and murder against the French govern-
ment, and to injure the neutrality and dignity of the
government to which he was accredited,' and a copy of the
Drake correspondence was addressed to every member of
the diplomatic corps, accompanied by a note upon the profana-
tion of the sacred character of ambassador \

The Due d'Enghien had not lain in his grave for a week
when Napoleon made this solemn appeal to the law of nations.
But though it demanded little intelligence to perceive, it would
have argued some degree of courage to indicate the irony of the

1 For Napoleon's instructions to Mehee, see Corr. ix. 73, no. 7,240 ;
216, no. 7,497 ; 291, no. 7,620 ; Moniteur , March 25, 1804.

THE CONSPIRACY AND THE RAIDS 77

situation. It is not therefore surprising that the imperial
manifesto was met by exaggerated assurances of horror from the
timorous Courts of Germany. The Bavarian minister had no
words too strong to condemn ' the disgraceful and criminal
proceedings of Mr. Drake.' Count Beust, the envoy of the
Elector of Ratisbon, professed ' profound indignation,' while
Abel, the agent of the free towns, spoke of the plot as having
been principally directed against the person of the First Consul,
'whom all the inhabitants of the free towns of the Empire
regard as the generous protector who has saved their in-
dependence, and for whom they are penetrated with the highest
veneration and the most perfect attachment V

Meanwhile Napoleon had ordered Talleyrand to demand the
immediate expulsion of Drake from Munich, the seizure of his
papers by the Elector, and the arrest of the Bishop of Chalons,
and of two other royalist conspirators who had been mentioned
in the Drake correspondence. Three months before, the Elector
had informed the British minister that no one abhorred
Jacobinism or the conduct of the French more than he did,
but a cloud in the sky was not more unstable than the will of
this timid sovereign. Without even awaiting explanations
from England, Baron von Montgelas, the Bavarian Prime
Minister, was commanded to tell Drake that the Elector
could neither communicate with him nor receive him in his
palace, and that his mission was terminated. On these tidings,
the British minister, fearing that he might be involved in the
fate of the Due d'Enghien, made an abrupt and somewhat
ignominious flight, attributed by the Moniteur, which adds
several fanciful details, to the ' disorder of his conscience com-
municating itself to his mind2.'

Soon afterwards, on April 11, a second report was published
by Regnier, in which the First Consul was solemnly informed
that Drake was not the only English agent implicated in vile

1 Moniteur, March 28, 1804.

2 Drake's correspondence, F. 0. Bavaria, 26, 27 ; Annual Register,
1804, 220 if. and 283 ff. ; Montgelas, Denkwiirdigkeiten, 87, 88 ; Moniteur,
April 11, 1804. The methods of Drake were objectionable, though
sanctioned by usage. He suborned two clerks in the office of the
Bavarian Prime Minister to betray secrets. Drake to Hawkesbury,
April 14, 1803. F. 0. Bavaria, 26.

78 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

intrigue. Mr. Spencer-Smith, who was accredited to the Court
of Wiirtemberg, was declared to be guilty of similar mis-
demeanours. Not a single letter of Spencer-Smith's was in-
cluded among the papers annexed to the report, but the lacuna
was filled by the narrative of a certain Captain Rosey, who,
acting under instructions from Mehee de la Touche, and
representing himself to be a royalist emigrant, had obtained
some oral and written communications with the British agent.
The Court of Wiirtemberg, alarmed by the fulminations of the
Moniteur, at once ordered the recall of Spencer-Smith, but
the English envoy, anticipating his fate, had left Stuttgart
a week before the denouement. Indeed, his position in that
city had long been intolerable. The government of the Duchy
had actually decreed that all French travellers and all strangers
not invested with any public character, civil or military, or
travelling without passports, should be brought before M. Di-
delot, the representative of France, upon their first entry into
the capital. From the moment of his arrival the British envoy
was shadowed as if he were a murderer or an anarchist. * I had
generally,' he wrote home, 'two or three police-sergeants in
sight from my windows, and not infrequently the French
secretaries of legation (of whom there were three or four
attached to the mission of Stuttgart) relieving one another like
regular patrols, particularly when a carriage was at the door.
I could not send a person out on an errand who was not dogged
out and at home, nor walk about myself without eternally
meeting the same inquisitive faces.' It is little wonder that
under the circumstances Mr. Smith kept a pistol handy, for as
he explained to Captain Rosey, the Elector of Wiirtemberg
would give him up without a word of warning, if Bonaparte
should demand his arrest1.

There remained Mr. Brook Taylor, the somewhat guileless
representative of British interests at the Court of Hesse-Cassel.
On July 30, 1803, Taylor wrote to Lord Hawkesbury enclosing

1 Spencer-Smith to Hawkesbury, June 3, 1802, F. 0. Wiirtemberg, 3 ;
Moniteur, April 13, 1804, piece ii ; Annual Register, 1804, 285. Smith,
on his return to London, gave an account of his conversations with Rosey
which is at variance with that given in the Moniteur, The reader should
compare the Annual Register,

THE CONSPIRACY AND THE RAIDS 79

communications from a body which styled itself the General
Council of the Cisrhenane Confederation. There was a letter
to George III, a letter to the British Cabinet, and a table of
the 'effective strength' of the Confederation on July 15, 1803.
According to the story of the conspirators, the Confederacy had
been formed in the later part of 1800, with a view of freeing
Belgium and the Rhenish provinces from the intolerable oppres-
sions of the French. A general rising had been concerted for
the night of February 1-2, 1801, but the plan fell through, and
before a blow could be struck the Peace of Luneville dashed
the hopes of 120,000 men. Now, however, the renewal of the
war had revived the activities of the plot. In the matter of
men the Confederacy was stronger than ever, for it numbered
over 172,000 scattered through the eastern arrondissements
from the Vosges to the Channel. But in money it was weak.
To be precise, a sum of i?20,000 was urgently required of the
British government. With a viaticum so modest the leaders
had little doubt of success. Ten days after the rising 300,000
Rhinelanders would join the standard, not to speak of the
Unistes, a widely ramified and powerful secret society in France,
with which they had already entered into relations. Such
a force would make but short work of the 8,000 men who
garrisoned the conquered provinces, and when success had been
achieved, it was intimated that the conspirators, respectable
men and mightily adverse to republics, would establish a Cis-
rhenane monarchy, placing the crown upon the head of the
6 Prince of York,' whose ' sublime qualities ' had already made
an ineffaceable impression on their hearts *,

Further research may perhaps be able to determine the exact
significance of these wild proposals. Was it merely the clumsy
attempt of a knot of needy Germans to replenish their purses ?
Was it a subtle concoction of the French police ? Or was there
a basis of truth in the story of this gigantic conspiracy hatched
by the malcontents of Belgium and the Rhine provinces ? Two
facts, however, are certain. The British government declined
to have anything to do with the chiefs of the Cisrhenane
Confederation, and somehow or other the Taylor correspondence
found its way into the pigeon-holes of the French ministry of
1 The Conseil-General to George III. F. 0. German States, 12.

80 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

police !. It was not until May 8, 1804, that the First Consul
determined to utilize his information. ' See,' he wrote to
Regnier, ' that all the documents relative to Mr. Taylor and the
insurrection which he wished to cause in the four departments
of the Rhine, be sent to you at once and put in order, so as
to get this minister driven out of Hesse-Cassel V Yet the
documents were not published till November 18, and then they
were not printed in their entirety, for the long list of the
conspiring communes was omitted. Was it that Napoleon was
contemplating a voyage to the land of 172,916 bogus members
of a bogus Cisrhenane Confederacy ? And did he reflect that
it would be unwise to publish aspersions upon the loyalty of
provinces recently annexed to France, through which he was
proposing to make a triumphal tour ? But however this might
be, Brook Taylor was driven from Cassel.

Meanwhile a great event had occurred in France, for on
May 18, 1804, the Senate adopted a new constitution which
transformed the Consulate into the Empire. It was a change
not only of internal structure, though in this respect it was of
the greatest moment, discarding, as it did, the last forms of
republicanism ; but it also marked a new step in the develop-
ment of Napoleon's European ambitions. They were now
indeed patent to all men. 'The arriere-pensee of the man,'
wrote Dalberg, the minister of Baden at Paris (April 27, 1804),
' is the domination of the world, and his mind is struck with
the idea that destiny calls him to the role of Alexander and
Charlemagne3.1 But it was a needless refinement to speak of
arriere-pensees. ' If I am forced to make a continental war,'
observed the new-made Emperor to his marshals, * I will change
the face of Europe V

Upon the acceptance of the Empire there followed a tour
of inspection and triumph through the Rhenish provinces, the
object of which was alike military and political. The new
Emperor, who was aware that Germany might once more

1 Taylor to Hammond, Dec. 28, 1803, F. 0. German States, 12 :
( I have informed the chiefs of the Cisrhenane Confederation that H. M. 's
government has come to the determination not to encourage any insur-
rection under the present circumstances in France.'

2 Corr. ix. 354, no. 7,739.

3 ErdmannsdorfFer, v. 56, 126. 4 Id. v. 114.

THE CONSPIRACY AND THE RAIDS 81

become the battle-field of Europe, was anxious to strengthen
his frontier on the German side, and to prepare a rapid
mobilization. It was well also that he should be reassured of
the pliancy of the German princes of the south ; that he
should learn from their own lips, if possible, and if not, from
the lips of their ministers, the amount of assistance that they
would be able to afford in the case of a war with Austria ; in
a word, that he should lay the foundations of a German Con-
federacy under French protection. At Aix-la-Chapelle he
received an envoy from the Court of Vienna, sent to recognize
formally his assumption of the imperial crown. The head of
the Holy Roman Empire, Francis II, had already (August 11,
1804) taken the new title of Emperor of Austria, but there was
nevertheless a small but studied humiliation conveyed in the
choice of the capital of Charlemagne as the place in which
the successor of the Carlo vingians should recognize the usurper's
title. From Aix-la-Chapelle Napoleon proceeded to Mainz,
where it had been arranged that he should meet a great
assemblage of subservient Germans.

The famous city of Mainz still bore the scars of war. One
whole quarter was in ruins, and others presented a sad spectacle.
But while the evils of war are temporary and may be remedied,
the city was suffering a more durable hardship in the shape
of the French customs regulations. The Mayencais had the
mortification of knowing that in Germany articles of luxury
could be purchased at two-thirds of the price which they were
compelled to pay for them on the left or French bank of the
river. They complained that their commerce was ruined and
their trade destroyed, and they hoped that the visit of the
French Emperor would put a term to their misfortunes. Bona-
parte held colloquies with the merchants while an anxious or
curious crowd collected round his house, but he was not come
upon a commercial errand1. His first care was to inspect the
fortifications of a city which would clearly play an important
part in any German campaign, and for two days he spent
eight hours on horseback, surveying bridges, walls, and cannon.
His next object was to sound the loyalty and to ascertain the
views of his German clientele. The assemblage was not indeed

1 Erdmannsdorffer, v. 134.

FISHER G

82 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

all that he had intended. On one excuse or another the
Electors of Hesse, of Wurtemberg, and of Bavaria, as well as
the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, absented themselves from
the meeting, and sent their agents instead to convey compli-
ments to the French Emperor. But there were two persons
whose presence it was peculiarly necessary for Napoleon to
secure, and these two persons came. The first of these was
the old Elector of Baden, whose territory had been violated by
the capture of the Due d'Enghien, and the second was Freiherr
Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg, Arch-chancellor of
the Empire and Archbishop of Ratisbon, who had been evicted
from the See of Mainz in consequence of the French annexations.
Of all German princes these two had most reason to complain
of Napoleon, and their attendance at Mainz would most signally
demonstrate the Emperor's influence. There was no difficulty
in securing Charles Frederick : he had been effectually cowed by
Talleyrand's hectoring diplomacy, and, as one of his ministers
remarked, 'the guns of Strasburg commanded the policy of
Baden.' But the Arch-chancellor made a feint of resistance.
It would be, he represented, extremely painful to him to come
to Mainz, a city associated with his ancient glory. Might he
not pay his respects at some other place on Napoleon's route ?
The Emperor, however, was inexorable. To Mainz he must
come, and to Mainz he came *.

It is worth while to dwell for a moment upon the singular
character and career of Karl von Dalberg. His birth made
him the peer of the most noble and ancient families of Germany.
In the twelfth century a Dalberg had been Archbishop of
Cologne ; a Johann von Dalberg, Bishop of Worms, had been
a famous patron of letters in the fifteenth century, and was the
recipient of many dedications from German Humanists. But
it was at the imperial coronations that the pride of the Dalberg
family was most conspicuously exhibited. At this high festival,
attended by all the princes and nobles of Germany, the herald
would at a given moment cry out three times, ' Is no Dalberg
there ? ' And if a Dalberg were present he stepped out of the
throng fully armed and accoutred, the first of all the chivalry

1 Erdmannsdorffer, v. 129, 131, 133 ; Corr. x. 1, 2, nos. 8,066-8 ;
Moniteur, 1804.

THE CONSPIRACY AND THE RAIDS 83

of the Empire to receive the honour of knighthood from his
newly elected sovereign. The traditions of old imperial and
ecclesiastical Germany, destined so soon to pass away, seem to
be specially embodied in this Rhenish house which had given
a president to the imperial Chamber of Wetzlar, a prince-
abbot to Fulda, archbishops to Mainz and to Cologne, and
a long series of chamberlains and councillors to the prince-
bishops of the Rhine. Yet there was nobody in Germany
whose temper was less mediaeval than Karl von Dalberg.
Though from the age of ten onwards he had held posts con-
nected with the Church, his mind was singularly liberal and
free from prejudice. His education had been broken and some-
what desultory, a combination of law, theology, and painting
against a background of travel, fortified by excellent intro-
ductions. But his intelligence was quick, his sympathies open,
his affections warm. He entered public life at a happy moment,
after the last fiery spurts of the Seven Years*' War, when even
prince-bishops began to think of setting their houses in order
after the model of the great and victorious Frederick of Prussia.
His master, Emmanuel Joseph, Archbishop of Mainz, was a man
cast in the new mould of despotic philanthropy, and Dalberg
proved as apt and zealous a pupil, as high birth combined with
a sentimental and dilettante temperament would permit. In
1772, when twenty-eight years of age, he was made Statthalter
at Erfurt, a position which gave him the opportunities of
a proconsul. His rule was mild, tolerant, and beneficent. He
abolished torture, started a chemical laboratory, stimulated
useful economic inquiries, and organized the wits and savants
of his Saxon proconsulate into an Academy. The praise of
this amiable young person was on all men's lips. Goethe sent
him the manuscript of his Farbenlehre, and treated the Dal-
bergian comments with respect. Twenty years after he had
quitted Thuringia the natives would speak of the ' Coadjutor's
time' with gratitude and regret. Schiller received subsidies
from the Dalbergian purse, as well as an indifferent picture
from the Dalbergian brush on the occasion of his wedding.
Wieland prized his warm and respectful letters. Young Wil-
helm von Humboldt thought him charming, and lauded the
elevation of his views and the excellence of his character. He

g 2

84 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

governed his people, shot his pheasants, flirted platonically
with his female friends, gave charming dinners, read papers
innumerable to his Academy, lectured on the principles of
aesthetics, and published Contemplations on the Universal.
There was no subject, from a kitchen stove to a scheme of penal
law, upon which he was not prepared to dash off some well-
intentioned, high-sounding, and ill-considered effusion. He
was one of those expansive and prosperous persons who are
blind to differences and dividing lines, and have not the grit
to think unpleasantly. When the news came to Erfurt that
Louis XVI had been brought back from Varennes, he walked
out on to the balcony with a lady friend, Karoline von Beulwitz,
and, looking up at the moon and stars, said in full round tones,
4 What are the events of this little Earth in comparison with
the immeasurable Heaven ? A king and a queen fleeing their
realm, what is that beside the world above us ? ' Men with
such powers of spacious self-consolation easily adapt themselves
to circumstance, and often fall into moral disaster unconsciously,
while bestowing upon their own dubious actions the most
handsome epithets. Dalberg posed as a high-priest of Nature
and humanity, but a political role was forced upon him.
A conflict of allegiances at once arose, calculated to perplex
an honest judgement prepared to face facts. The Elector
of Mainz belonged to the Furstenbund, and the object of the
Furstenbund was to thwart the plans of Joseph II of Austria.
Dalberg was an imperialist if he was anything; he heartily
admired Joseph as a statesman and reverenced him as the head
of the Empire. But, on the other hand, he was made Coadjutor
of Mainz in 1787 by Prussian influence, and as coadjutor he was
member of the Bund. A strong man would have gone into the
whole situation, and then taken his side. He would have argued
either that the increase of Austrian power in Germany was
good or that it was bad; either that Prussia represented the
true course of German development or that she did not. But
Dalberg did neither the one thing nor the other. In a series
of vague and verbose epistles he tried to represent to his
imperial friend that the Furstenbund, so far from being aimed
against the Hapsburgs, was in reality but a step towards the
unification of Germany under their control, and salved his

THE CONSPIRACY AND THE RAIDS 85

conscience with many pious aspirations to that desirable end.
We are inclined to think that he may have deceived himself.
But if so, he must have been the only dupe.

The French Revolution found him still vague, benevolent,
and patriotic. As a priest and a German he deplored, as a
man of letters and an optimist he was inclined to palliate, the
effervescent actions of the conquerors. Meanwhile a rich crop
of ecclesiastical pluralities came to ripeness for him, the
Bishopric of Constance in 1800, the Archbishopric of Mainz
in 1802. No more golden harvest was offered to the advancing
scythe of secularization, and Dalberg was compelled to take
precautions. Already in 1797 the Court of Mainz had made
up its mind to accept the principle of secularization, and to
drive the best bargain which the circumstances might permit.
At Rastadt its representative, Baron Albini, pleaded that though
bishoprics and abbeys might be thrown to the hungry, the
Electorate at least should be spared. But the question was
not settled then, and five years succeeded, ominous with menace.
It was clear to Dalberg that he could hope for little support
from Austria or Prussia, for in his efforts to please both powers
he had earned the gratitude of neither. So he turned to
the rising sun, and sent Count Beust to Paris to save as much
as might be of his spiritual dignity. The step was successful,
and amid the plentiful mowings of 1803 he was left, not indeed
uninjured, but still erect, and sole survivor of the race of
ecclesiastical Electors. The dioceses of Ratisbon and Mainz,
of Treves and Cologne, or rather those parts of them which
lay west of the Rhine, were placed under his spiritual super-
vision, and a small secular State with Ratisbon for capital was
constructed to maintain his temporal dignity1. Such was the
man who was now to serve as an apt instrument in Napoleon's
unsparing hand.

The meeting of so many princes, princesses, and ambassadors
excited the liveliest curiosity in the Courts of Europe. That
there was some political design behind these sumptuous festivi-
ties was obvious, but it was not clear what that design precisely
was. Lucchesini, who was Prussian ambassador in Paris, told
his master (November 26, 1804) that the Emperor and the
1 Beaulieu-Mar^onnay, Karl von Dalberg und seine Zeit.

86 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Arch-chancellor were discussing the plan of a union between
the Electoral Courts, adding that so inordinate was the
Emperors ambition that he might some day wear the imperial
crown in Germany. In a later letter (December 21) further
details were added. The plan of a German federation
under French protection was mooted by Dalberg, and warmly
supported by Hesse-Cassel, in the presence of Bonaparte him-
self. Electoral Saxony and Baden had not concurred, and
the Bavarian envoy told Lucchesini that his own Court
was ignorant of any such plan. It was represented that
the French Empire, having secured its natural limits on the
side of Germany by the Rhine frontier, had no interest in
further aggrandizement ; that the Court of France was con-
sequently 'the natural friend and impartial protector1 of the
German Empire against the Courts of Vienna and Berlin, who
would naturally seek to enlarge their boundaries at the expense
of the smaller princes. According to another account, Napoleon
spoke very strongly against Russian influence in the Reich,
and advocated the necessity of a third power under French
protection, which could hold Prussia and Austria in check,
thrusting aside the objections of the Arch-chancellor with
4 Good ! if the princes do not desire my protection, I will give
their lands to the man who shall aid my plans.' Another
report says that he urged Dalberg to appoint a coadjutor, and
thus settle the succession to his important post. ■ It will never
do,' he said, ' for an Austrian prince to get the place ; that house
can never be given the head and tail of German affairs, the
initiative and the ratification V

Nothing, however, was decided. It was enough for the Em-
peror to have supervised the fortifications of the town, to have
received the homage of the princes and envoys of Germany,
and to have thrown into the timid minds of his audience the
seeds of so vast a political idea as the Confederation of the
Rhine.

Some scraps of Bonaparte's talk have been preserved. He

1 Rechberg's despatch of October 15, 1804, quoted by Sicherer, Staat und
Kirche in Bay em, 108-9. For the schemes and conversations at Mainz
and Paris, Bailleu, Preussen und Frankreich, and Erdmannsdorffer's
collection of the Baden correspondence have been utilized.

THE CONSPIRACY AND THE RAIDS 87

asked the envoy of the Elector of Wurtemberg whether the
intestine war between the father and son would soon finish,
and said that a term must be put to it. The agent of Bavaria
was questioned as to the disposition of the troops in Munich.
Were they in camps or in cantonments ? It was remarked that
although Bonaparte did not return the visit of the Electors,
he yet specially singled them out for distinction, and the
tempting prospect of the Breisgau was hung out before the
Princes of Baden.

Some of the acolytes of Mainz reappeared in Paris later on
in the year, for the ceremony of the imperial coronation by
the Pope. The Elector of Baden, whose government coveted
the Austrian possessions in Alsace, sent his son and his grand-
son to offer the ' homage of his profound veneration on the
important occasion,' and the Arch-chancellor and the Hereditary
Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt also attended to pay their homage.
Never was Dalberg more serene or self-important. At a
dinner-party, at which the Pope was present, the Emperor
declared that he would not admit the pretensions of the
cardinals to rank above the German Electors, saying, 'I treat
you as a sovereign and brother ; the cardinals are my cousins/
When the conversation turned on the ecclesiastical reconstruc-
tion of Germany, his Imperial Majesty said that the proposed
plan for a German Concordat, a scheme much favoured by
Dalberg, had a 'particular interest' for him, and even used
threats to the cardinals who were throwing obstructions in its
way. 'How do you dare,' he asked, 'to refuse longer when
it depends upon me to make you canons of Rome, and the
Pope a bishop ? ' And indeed it was to the interest of France
that the Pope should sanction the changes resulting from
the political rearrangements of 1803.

In the intervals of the festivities all kinds of political schemes
were broached. Hints were thrown out that a new Congress
might meet in some German town, such as Ratisbon, to settle
the Concordat, to reorganize the Circles, and to arrange dis-
putes as to the debts of the princes who had received com-
pensations in 1803. His Majesty, receiving the Electoral
Prince of Baden in the most obliging manner, let drop in
conversation that his territory (which was in the direst financial

88 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

straits) might well maintain ten thousand troops. Margrave
Louis of Baden was told that it had been a mistake to leave the
Breisgau in the hands of Austria. ' We cannot,' said Napoleon,
6 tolerate it any longer.' The Hessian plan of an Electoral
union leaked out and became matter for open discussion.
Dalberg formally proposed to the Count von Bunau, the Saxon
minister at Paris, that his Court should join the union, but
the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs professed the most
complete indifference, and denied all knowledge of plans for
changing the Germanic Constitution. The Foreign Office was
even for the time inaccessible to the solicitations of German
princes. It was clearly the Emperor's object to profess the
utmost loyalty to the existing constitution of the Reich, while
stimulating the princes to the discussion of subversive schemes.
In the approaching struggle with Austria he would raise the
banner of the Holy Roman Empire, and when victory had
been secured, the Germans themselves should help him to
destroy it.

The amenities of the coronation were hardly concluded when
Germany was startled by a fresh and unexpected outrage.

The free town of Hamburg had already suffered from the
invasion of Hanover. It had been compelled to advance a loan
to the French at the mouth of the pistol ; but it was now to
experience an insult, no less direct than that inflicted on the
Grand Duchy of Baden by the seizure of the Due d'Enghien.
4 Immediately after the Drake affair,' wrote Bonaparte to Fouche,
October 7, 1804, 'Lord Hawkesbury had the imbecility to issue
a circular to justify the conduct of that minister before the
cabinets of Europe. In order to expose the absurdity and
atrocity of the principles he then advanced, my intention was
to send to the same cabinets the circular with an answer1.
I have thought better of it since. I wish the English minister

1 Corr. x. 17, no. 8,100. Lord Hawkesbury's circular note (April 30,
1804), after disclaiming ' the unfounded and atrocious calumny ' that his
government were ( parties to any project of assassination,' proceeds to lay
down the principle that ' a minister in a foreign country is bound by the
nature of his office ... to abstain from all communication with the
disaffected in the country to which he is accredited . . . but he is not
subject to the same restraints with respect to those countries with which
his sovereign is at war' (Annual Register, 1804, 215-17).

THE CONSPIRACY AND THE RAIDS 89

at Hamburg to be carried off, together with his papers, and
immediately afterwards I will cause this abduction to be
notified to the Courts of Europe, justifying it by Lord Hawkes-
bury's note. They assure me he is lodged near the river. It
will be easy for General Bernadotte to get him carried off.
Write to him in this sense and consult M. Lachevardiere,
who is, I believe, in Paris, and who ought to know this
minister's house. Two boats, full of infantry, and twelve
or fifteen disguised gendarmes would suffice for this ex-
pedition. We should find some interesting lights in this
correspondence.'

Sir George Berriman Rumbold, the British agent at Hamburg,
against whom Bonaparte was plotting this design, was a robust
Gallophobe. His correspondence shows him to have been an
honourable man, but not a very discreet one. He hated the
French, expected other powers to do the same, and was, perhaps,
too ready with the epithets 'pliant' and 'pusillanimous,' when
describing in an official despatch the conduct of a friendly
power. As Hamburg was naturally friendly to England,
Rumbold was the centre of a large and active Gallophobe
colony. He seems to have been in regular correspondence
with many of the foremost emigres at that time residing in
Germany, and it was his function not only to represent British
interests in the most important of the free cities of the north,
but also to transmit intelligence to his government and to
encourage resistance to French aggression. But not a particle
of evidence can be found in the correspondence now lying in
the National Archives of Paris to implicate either Sir George
Rumbold or Lord Hawkesbury in any plot against the life of
the First Consul \ There are, in fact, in this litter of washing
bills and tailors' bills and draft despatches to the Secretary
of State no 'lights' which would have seemed 'interesting'
to Napoleon or his police.

Bernadotte threw himself with zeal into the congenial task

1 Archives Nationales, F7. 6,448-50, and F. 0., Hamburg, 25. 'I have
never received commands from your Lordship to engage in operations of
a confidential or secret nature. I have therefore confined myself to
endeavours to obtain information of what our enemies were preferring
against us.' — Rumbold to Hawkesbury, April 20, 1804.

90 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

of capturing a British envoy in a neutral town. No sooner had
he received Fouche's letter than he sent the chief of his staff,
General Berthier, to inspect the fortifications of Hamburg.
That officer reported that the town gates were shut every
evening at seven, and that on no pretext were they opened
before 6 a.m. at the earliest. The keys of the gates were during
the night deposited in the Senate-house, troops guarded all the
issues day and night, and sentinels were posted on the ramparts.
On the river-side the town was defended by great chains and
two bodies of watchmen. It would be quite impossible to carry
off Rumbold with any secrecy if he happened to be in the town.
' In that case,' wrote Bernadotte, ' your Majesty will perhaps
judge that a man who has put himself outside all laws ought
to be seized wherever he may be, and that if we have no other
means of carrying him off, I ought to march a battalion or
more by night from the fortress of Lauenburg so as to be at
Hamburg when the gates open. I shall take care to send
the day before some men in disguise, who will surround the
house of Rumbold at break of day and enter to secure his
person. These men will then resume their uniforms and
execute the orders they have received. The general officer
commanding the troops at the gate will give a solemn assurance
to the Senate that we have only come to seize a chief of
assassins who wishes to plunge our country into mourning.
He will also declare to the Senate that its conduct in this
matter will determine the good or evil dispositions of France
towards it V

It did not, however, come to this. Adjutant-Commandant
Maison, who was sent into Hamburg by Bernadotte, reported
that the British minister was residing not in the town itself, but
at Grindel, his country residence, a mile and a half off. This
made all comparatively easy. The night of November 25 was
fixed by Maison for the execution of the plot. General Frere,
commanding the French troops at Hamburg, supplied a hundred
men, and the detachment was disembarked punctually at mid-
night at Hamburgerburg, between Altona and Hamburg. The
town was shut up, and there was nothing to fear. Two carriages
were waiting at the bank. Maison jumped in with about

1 Archives Nationales, A. F. iv. 1,594.

THE CONSPIRACY AND THE RAIDS 91

a dozen men and drove off rapidly to Rumbold's house, leaving
the remainder to follow on foot. Placing a man to watch every
door and window, Maison waited for Frere's detachment. He
was certain that Rumbold was within, for at four o'clock on that
very afternoon he had been found at home by Maison's young
German brother-in-law, Weigott, who had been sent for the
precise purpose of spying out the land. When it was clear that
Frere could not be far off, Maison ordered a German named
Steck (provided by Marshal Bernadotte) to knock at the door
and to announce himself as a courier come from Tonningen
with despatches. A servant called out, 'Hand the papers
through the window.' Steck insisted that he must speak with
Rumbold, but an entrance was denied him. Then Maison gave
orders for the door to be forced. The French burst into the
house and found Rumbold in bed. They ordered him to rise
and dress, and seizing all the papers in the house, made their way
back to the river. At 6 a.m. they were embarked with their
prey. If the tide had not been contrary they could have started
two hours earlier 1.

A coach strongly guarded conveyed the unfortunate British
envoy to Hanover, and thence to Paris, where he was lodged in
the Temple Prison, fearing not unnaturally that he might be called
upon at any moment to meet the death of the Due d'Enghien.
But Napoleon had overstepped the limit. The British agent was
accredited not only to the free town of Hamburg, but also to
the Circle of Lower Saxony, of which the King of Prussia was
Director. The whole of Germany was profoundly moved by so
flagrant a violation of international right and courtesy. The
Senate of Hamburg met at 7 a.m., and sent a deputation to
the French minister to protest against the violation of their
neutrality ; the French minister denied having had any know-
ledge of the transaction. The Senate sent a circular letter
to all the Courts informing them of the event. The King of
Prussia energetically espoused the cause of the British agent,
and demanded his release. ' I am compromised,' he wrote, ' and
I am compromised in the most sensible manner,' alike as Director
of the Lower Saxon Circle, as a friend of France, and as the
protector of the neutrality of Northern Germany. The Emperor
1 F. 6,448, no. 9,497, printed in Revue Retrospective, June 1901.

92 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

was not prepared at this juncture to sacrifice the friendship of
Prussia. Rumbold was released on November 11, but not before
he gave his parole never to come within a distance of fifty
leagues of the posts occupied by the French army so long as
the war lasted. The Moniteur, commenting upon the event,
remarked that if the case of this ' worthy confrere of Drake,
of Spencer-Smith, and of Taylor,' had been brought to a ter-
mination, 'precis quite as curious as those of his rivals would
have offered themselves.' There was no one to contradict the
assertion, and with this parting shot the disgraceful episode
came to a close l.

1 Gentleman s Magazine, 1804 ; Bailleu, ii. 307 ff. ; Revue Retrospective,
June 1901; Moniteur, November 11, 1804.

Principal Authorities : Nougarede de Fayet, Recherches historiques sur
le proces et la condamnation du due d'Enghien ; Welschinger, Le due
d'Enghien ; Boulay de la Meurthe, Les dernieres annees du due d'Enghien ;
Erdmannsdorffer, Karl Friedrich von Baden, Politische Korrespondenz ;
Correspondence of Drake, Spencer-Smith, Taylor, and Rumbold at the
Record Office ; Rumbold's papers in the Archives Nationales ; Papers
printed in the Moniteur and Annual Register.

CHAPTER V

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE

f Culbuter le corps d'Allemagne,, c'est perdre l'avantag-e de la Belgique,
de la limite du Rhin ; car c'est mettre dix ou douze millions d'habitans
dans la main de deux puissances dont nous nous soucions egalement.' —
Napoleon, May 26, 1797.

The war with Austria came in August 1805. Napoleon had
foreseen it and had worked for it. In January he told his
Council of State that it was to this end solely, and not for the
purpose of invading England, that he had kept his army on
a war footing for two years. The English descent was a mere
pretext, but the camp of Boulogne would give him twenty days'
start of his enemy1. It was a falsehood to say that the
Boulogne flotilla was never seriously meant ; it was both
seriously meant and anxiously contrived. But there was,
nevertheless, an element of truth in Napoleon's statement. In
two years of assiduous military preparation he had fashioned
a splendid army, capable of giving effect to his will, of making
and of maintaining new conquests for the Empire. He had
harangued these men and inflamed them with the prospects of
new laurels and new wealth, speaking to the generals of an
'Empire of Europe,'' and indicating glorious destinies that
might recall the times of Alexander. Germany, Italy, the
Balkan peninsula, the ancient monarchy of Spain, were all
weak and helpless, as he knew. Why should he not revive, nay
extend the Empire of Charlemagne, or rather superadd to the
role of Charlemagne, limited to that old Europe in which
nothing was to be done, the more glorious and romantic role
of the Macedonian ? He was a man of many schemes, and he
pursued them conjointly. As early as May 1804, he declared to
the Italian charge d'affaires that it was hardly suitable that he
should continue to be Emperor, and at the same time President
1 Miot de Melito, Memoires, ii. 258 ; and cf. Metternich, Memoires, i. 39.

94 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

of a Republic, and that the Consulta of Milan had better
reflect upon the situation and submit its proposals. It was
equivalent to an invitation that the Cisalpine Republic should
be converted into a monarchy or annexed to France, prospects,
as Napoleon knew, equally alarming to the Court of Vienna.
Still the plan was persisted in, and in September Austria was
informed that Joseph, the eldest of the Bonapartes, would be
invited to assume the crown of Italy. But it was necessary to
keep within the four corners of the Treaty of Luneville, and
the Hapsburgs were assured that the Italian kingdom would be
entirely separate from the French Empire, and that Joseph, in
the event of his accepting the proffered monarchy, should
renounce his right of succeeding to the throne of France.
Immediately after the coronation in December the discussions
of the Italian plan were resumed, and the kingdom, offered
successively to Joseph and Louis, was finally taken by Napoleon
himself. How could Austria be expected to acquiesce in such
an act ? She was indeed assured that the arrangement was
temporary, and that there was no intention of definitive in-
corporation. But she was condemned to watch the sumptuous
progress of Napoleon through Lombardy, the solemn coronation
at Milan, the upstart alien usurping those ancient forms with
which the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire had been
wont to receive the iron crown. She saw in prospect the doom
of Venetia and of Naples, and she combined in a coalition with
England and with Russia. When, in February 1804, the English
Parliament was asked for five and a half millions of secret
service money, the situation was made clear to Napoleon. That
money could only be required for a Russian or Austrian subsidy.
He knew then that a war with Austria would come, and he felt
that, when it did come, it would make him master of Germany
and Italy. When and how depended on the waves and the
weather. If he could once elude the British fleet, march to
London, raise the canaille and dethrone George, he reckoned
that Austria would be too wise to stir. If on the other hand
there was hindrance in the Channel, then he would force on the
war with Austria, conquer Central Europe, and defeat the sea
by the land.

In this war he intended to have the South German princes on

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 95

his side, and the success with which this intention was achieved
is one of the momentous influences in German history, colouring
the whole subsequent development of the south, and explaining
movements apparently very distant, such as the curious con-
stitutional agitations which shook the Swabian mind in the
second and third decades of the nineteenth century. Of these
South German alliances the most important was the Bavarian,
not only because Bavaria was the largest and most concentrated
principality in the south, but also for its military tradition and
proximity to Austria ; and as early as July 1804 Napoleon
mooted the idea of a marriage alliance between some member of
his house and the reigning family at Munich. By November 8
the scheme had solidified into a secret negotiation, and the
most stringent pressure was being applied to the Bavarians.
4 A refusal and even marks of repugnance,'' wrote Talleyrand to
Otto, the French minister at Munich, 'is the thing in the
world most impossible to palliate or repair.*' How, it was
intimated, could the Elector decline an alliance with the 'first
Empire in Europe ' and the 6 first sovereign in the world ' ?
Nevertheless the affair was allowed to drag, until in March
1805 Otto received instructions to propose to the government
of Munich an offensive and defensive alliance with France.

This decision, felt at once by all to be tragic and momentous,
was forced upon a dismayed and divided Court. The Elector,
Maximilian Joseph of Zweibriick, an amiable but nerveless
prince, had before the Revolution served as the colonel of a
French regiment. He considered France as his adopted country,
he admired Napoleon, he believed that the French alliance
might bring him aggrandizement and prestige, he remembered
the ancient enmities of Austria, and her present support of the
Imperial Knights — a tooth gnawing at his dominion. His
Prime Minister, Montgelas, a Savoyard penetrated by French
influence, was carrying out in Bavaria the same work of en-
lightened centralization which had been accomplished in France
by the Revolution and the Consulate. But the Electress was
sister of the Empress of Russia and the Queen of Sweden. She
hated the Revolution, and she hated Napoleon, and threw the
fires of her passionate and ardent temperament into the whirl of
politics. Primed by the ministers of Russia and Sweden, Caroline

96 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

boldly pressed their views upon her weak and distracted
husband. She proposed that Montgelas should be dismissed,
and that a close alliance should be formed with the Court of
Vienna.

By August 1805 Napoleon had made up his mind as to the
particulars of the alliance which the unfortunate Elector was
to be compelled to accept. The Emperor's stepson, Prince
Eugene, was to marry Augusta, the eldest daughter of the
Elector, and Bavaria was to be bound to France by an offensive
and defensive alliance. It was no obstacle to Napoleon that
the Bavarian princess was already betrothed to the Prince of
Baden, and that both families were anxious to carry out the
arrangement. With prompt decision Napoleon swept away
the pleas and protests, and forced the aged Charles Frederick
to renounce the marriage he had devised for his son. It
was, however, a more difficult task decisively to compromise
Maximilian Joseph, whose territories would be the first to suffer
from an Austrian war. The Elector implored Napoleon to allow
him to remain neutral, at least till the arrival of a French
army, and then that the alliance should not be signed till the
Austrians had violated his territory. 6 In the name of God,' he
cried to Otto, the French minister, 'do not fight against the
whole world,' for it appeared to him that Prussia too would
certainly join in the fray. But Napoleon would permit no
delay. The unlucky Prince was obliged to authorize his minister
to sign a provisional treaty on August 24, but no sooner had
he taken this step than his mind was beset with fresh doubts
and terrors. On September 6 Austria summoned him to join
forces with her army on pain of being treated as an enemy.
The Prince wrote an autograph letter to Francis, imploring the
Emperor to let him preserve the appearance of neutrality until
his son, who was travelling in France, had returned. ' I am
the most unfortunate of men,' he wrote to Otto, September 8 ;
6 do not be angry. God knows that I am not false. ... If you
could have seen what I have suffered these two days you would
have pity on me.'

Otto saw that the Elector was wavering. He came to the
palace, told him that he must leave Munich immediately, and
place himself under the protection of the advancing French

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 97

army. The miserable man consented, and on the night of
September 8-9 left his capital, and, accompanied by the Corps
diplomatique, fled to Wurzburg. Here the struggle of the
powers for the body and soul of Maximilian Joseph began
afresh. At one moment, stirred by the recollection of his
predecessor, Charles VII, who had lost his dominions owing to
a French alliance, he resolved to treat with the Austrians, now
in possession of Munich, but Otto averted this danger by
sending extraordinary couriers to Bernadotte and Marmont,
whose divisions were rapidly advancing on the Main. The
arrival of the French troops decided the day, and on October 12
the Elector ratified the provisional treaty. With signal du-
plicity Otto, acting on the authorization of Talleyrand, altered
the date of the treaty from August 24 to September 23.
' From this most important change of date it becomes evident,'
remarks Otto, ' that the Elector has only concluded an alliance
after having been driven from his capital, and that his Majesty
the Emperor only commences the war in order to restore his
ally, and to avenge the injury which has been done to him V

The old Elector of Baden had already been exposed to so
many humiliations that the Treaty of Ettlingen, signed on
September 2, 1805, can have surprised no one familiar with the
Court of Karlsruhe. By this arrangement the House of Baden
was bound to furnish 3,000 men to the Grand Army, and the
same number was demanded from the Landgrave Louis of
Hesse-Darmstadt. ' My intention,'' wrote Napoleon to Talley-
rand, • is to comprise Darmstadt in my Germanic Confederation,
composed of Bavaria, Darmstadt, Wiirtemberg, and Baden. In
a word, I must have 3,000 men from Darmstadt or the Land-
grave will renounce my protection for ever, and suddenly break
off the expectation to which an alliance of 200 years entitles
him.'' Louis, who in his youth had frequented the society
of freemasons, savants, and philosophers, had been one of the
princes who had received most benefit from the territorial

1 Talleyrand to Otto, Nov. 8, 1804. Otto to Talleyrand, Feb. 6, March
12, March 20, Aug. 12, Sept. 2, Oct. 9, 1805. Affaires etrangeres, Corr.
Pol. : Baviere, 180 ; Lang, Memoiren, ii. 117-20 ; Pelet de la Lozere, c. xi ;
Souvenirs du General Thiard ; Lefebvre, Histoire des Cabinets de F Europe,
ii. 122-6.

FISHER H

98 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

rearrangements of 1803. But for his political direction he
looked to the Court of Berlin, and his hesitation to furnish
a contingent, prolonged until the battle of Austerlitz, provoked
a stinging rebuke from Napoleon x.

No historian has ever had many good words to spare for
Frederick II of Wurtemberg. That he was able, prompt, and
endowed with a certain spaciousness of vision may be conceded.
But a ruffianly and suspicious temper made him intolerable
alike as ruler, husband, and parent. It would have been
possible to ridicule his preposterous obesity and inordinate self-
importance if these defects had not been combined with cruelty
and caprice, if he had not bullied his wife, maltreated his sons,
and misgoverned his people. Having served as an officer in
Prussia and Russia, he had seen the manners and customs of
many men, and imbibed an enthusiasm for progressive despotism
as a type of government. The ways of Old Wurtemberg were
to him alien and senseless, for he first set foot in the country in
1797, when he was thirty-six years of age, so that he was quite
untroubled by sentimental considerations. He meant to make
himself autocrat, to break the Chamber and its committees, to
cow the nobles, to form a standing army, to encourage agri-
culture and the University, and to extract from the general situa-
tion of Europe as many square miles as possible for his duchy.

There had never been any real danger that a west wind would
drive revolutionary fire from Paris across the pines of the Black
Forest. The Swabian is a pleasant fellow, often dreamy and
thoughtful, losing himself in cloudy abstractions or feeding
upon the sober diet of memory, but rarely inflamed to violent
action. The land of Hegel and Schelling and Schiller pro-
duced at this time some rhetorical journalists but no serious
political movement. A few busy creatures talked and dreamt
of an Alemannian Republic and of a union with the Swiss, but
after the careful siftings of a vigilant police the number of
dreamers reduced itself to six. The real obstacle which Frederick
had to encounter was not the democratic aspirations of a

1 Corr. xi. 272, no. 9,307 ; 539, no. 9,671 ; 544, no. 9,680 ; Affaires
Hrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Hesse-Darmstadt, 3. M. Rambaud points out that
Louis was the last German prince to abandon France in 1813 (V Allemagne
napoleonienne, 37-8).

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 99

people, but the opposition of the Lutheran pastors and town
magistrates who sat in the Chamber and served on its standing
committees. These men were no democrats ; they were Old
Wiirtembergers, representing all the cherished prejudices of
that ancient stronghold of southern Lutheranism. They were
against a standing army, for Old Wurtemberg had never had
one ; they were against new taxes, regarding indeed all taxation as
exceptional, and only to be levied in times of utter need. Their
tradition of diplomacy — a tradition sanctified by long usage
among the small independent German towns — was to buy
neutrality from the larger powers. When the Duke sent envoys
to Rastadt or to Vienna or to Paris, they were confronted with
the agents of the Estates, charged to promote a separate and
generally an opposite policy. The inner Committee of the
Estates kept a secret treasure of its own, and was in fact the
real sovereign in the land. Yet, though Frederick was active
and domineering, he did not dare, without external support, to
overturn an ancient constitution which had been guaranteed as
late as 1770 by Prussia, England, and Denmark.

Napoleon had watched Frederick from afar, and fathomed
his aims. Though the Elector was fluent in the language of
Voltaire, having received his early education at Lausanne, he
was understood to detest France and all her works. His wife
was English or rather Hanoverian, a daughter of George III ;
his nephew was Alexander of Russia; he had joined hands
with Austria in the last war, and was even now in the summer
of 1805 proposing to Bavaria, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and
Prussia, the formation of a system of armed neutrality, in order
to exclude the troops of the belligerent powers from passing
over their respective territories. Napoleon knew all this, and
had taken his precautions. Two years earlier the Electoral
Prince of Wurtemberg had confided to the French legation at
Stuttgart the story of the brutal ill-treatment which he had
received from his father. * I thought,"' wrote Didelot, the French
envoy, 'of the importance which it might be to us to have in
the very bosom of the family of the Elector a man who should
necessarily be devoted to our interests.'' Considerations so
obvious as these were not neglected. The young man was
honourably received in Paris, and while the Emperor relieved

h2 ,

'> ! * ■

100 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

his necessities by an ample loan, he may have reflected that if
the worst came to the worst, an obnoxious parent in Stuttgart
might be relieved of his duties by a grateful and subservient son \

It did not, however, come to this. On August 30, 1805, the
Electoral Cabinet, assured that neutrality was out of the question,
consented to the defensive and offensive alliance with France.
6 1 must,1 wrote the Elector, August 29, ' take part either against
France or for her,' and such being the nature of the alternative,
Frederick's decision is no matter for surprise. He knew that
Austria could not defend his territory from the French ; he knew
that the French could defend his territory from Austria. Yet
he was reluctant to cast the die, and the terms of the treaty
were still under discussion when the French troops crossed the
border, and Ney, pointing his guns on Stuttgart, forced an entry
into the Elector's capital 2.

On October 1 1 the news reached Frederick that Napoleon had
crossed the Rhine. An aide de camp was immediately sent to
invite the Emperor to Ludwigsburg, where the Court of Wurtem-
berg was then assembled. At Pforzheim the guest was met by the
High Chamberlain and the Chief Equerry, and as he proceeded
further on his route by Prince Paul of Wiirtemberg. Bonfires
blazed at set intervals along the high-road, and a salvo of
a hundred guns saluted the entrance into Ludwigsburg. Though
the night was well advanced — it was ten o'clock — the Court was
assembled at the foot of the palace-stairs. A thousand lights
coruscated ' Welcome,' and there was a cheerful rattle of guns
to salute the master of the Legions. It was the first occasion
on which the Emperor of the French had received hospitality
from one of the old European dynasties.

He desired at once to be presented to the Electress, divining
in this well-instructed and conscientious Hanoverian the bed-
rock of resistance. To her he spoke much of the excellent
qualities of the English and of their admirable literature, and
the woman was conquered. On the next day he addressed

1 Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Wiirtemberg, 40 ; Alombert et Colin, La
Campagne de 1805 en Allemagne, i. 66 ; Pfister, Kbnig Friedrich von Wurttem-
berg und seine Zeit ,1-159; Masson, Napoleon et safamille, iii. 134; Treitschke,
Deutsche Geschichte, ii. 297 ff. ; Spohr, Autobiography (Eng. tr.), 107-8.

2 Hiiusser, ii. 578-9 ; Dumas, xiii. 341 ; Corr. xi. 273, no. 9,310.

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 101

himself to the cross-grained tyrant, an interview lasting four
hours, from which the Elector emerged exhausted but en-
thusiastic, saying that he had never met such eloquence save in
Frederick the Great, and that the two men had the same tour-
nitre aVesprit. It may be surmised that threats were mingled
with cajolery. ' If I had resisted the Emperor,' said Frederick
a few days later, ' my States would have been divided up, and
my house would have had to live upon the pity of foreign
Courts.'' But there was certainly a copious supply of imperial
blandishments, and a 'flattering picture,' to use the Elector's
own phrase, was drawn of the benefits which would accrue to
Wiirtemberg from the French alliance. One boon, conveyed
in language of coarse but congenial brevity, was specially
precious. As Frederick paraded the intractable opposition of
his Estates, Napoleon told him to ' get rid of the beasts.' So
on October 8 the treaty was signed, by which France promised
to aggrandize Wiirtemberg, while Wiirtemberg promised in
return to furnish ten thousand men for the coming war. And
meanwhile it is clearly understood that the 'beasts' may be
safely abolished. Subservience abroad, despotism at home,
such is the true nature of the Wiirtemberg contract \

If Baden and Wiirtemberg expected to be treated with
courtesy and consideration by the armies of their new ally, they
were soon undeceived. The first town Napoleon entered in the
territory of Baden was Kehl, opposite Strasburg. Despite the
prayers of the inhabitants, he ordered most of the houses
to be pulled down and the town to be fortified with all
speed. At Rastadt there was an outcry against the licence
and the requisitions of the French troops. 4 What would you
have ?' said the Emperor to one who expostulated ; ' the French-
man is gay, especially when he marches to battle.' ' Greater
violence,' said an official, ' was not even exercised in the year
of misfortune 1799, and could not be practised by the most
declared foe.' Complaints from all sides flowed in to Frederick

1 Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Wiirtemberg, 39-41 ; C. G. de Wreede,,
La Souabe apres le traite de Bale ; Hausser, Deutsche Geschichte, Hi. 230 ;
Schlossberger, Politische und militarische Correspondenz Friedrichs von
Wiirtemberg mit Napoleon I ; L. von Wolzogen, Memoiren ; Eugen von
Wiirtemberg^ Memoiren ; Levy^ Napoleon et la Paioo, 326-41.

102 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

of the French pillaging in Wurtemberg. ' Now our bailiffs,1
said the Elector, ' or other civil servants are maltreated for
having refused requisitions which their duty does not permit
them to furnish. Now our subjects, after having shared their
bread with the French troops, are not only pillaged and deprived
of their clothes, linen, and cattle, but mishandled and even
wounded.' Such was the practice of the great ally. It remains
to consider the theory of the alliance \

Before his series of treaties had been completed, Napoleon had
promulgated the official justification for the campaign. When
the French army crossed the Rhine, October 1, a proclamation
was issued in the following terms : — ' Soldiers, the war of the
Third Coalition has begun ; the Austrian army has crossed the
Inn, violated treaties, attacked our ally, and driven him from
his capital. You yourselves have had to hurry with forced
marches to the defence of our frontiers. We will not stop
until we have secured the independence of the German Empire,
succoured our allies, and confounded the pride of our foes V
To Frederick of Wurtemberg he wrote, October % : ' Your
Highness can no longer conceal from yourself the fact that the
House of Austria does not disguise its intention of getting hold
of the Germanic Body (s'emparer du Corps Germanique) and of
destroying all the sovereign houses V Germany, in other
words, was given to understand that the Emperor of the French
was marching to Vienna in order to uphold the dignity and
integrity of the Reich.

The new allies sang in chorus to this strange melody, adding
variations of their own. Max Joseph warned his people against
the treacherous plans of Austria, who wished to compel Bavaria
to fight for a cause foreign to her own interests. Frederick issued
a manifesto enumerating all the grievances of Wurtemberg
against the Court of Vienna — arrears of compensation, meddle-
some interference in the affairs of the Swabian Circle, and the
protection of the Imperial Knights, grudges ever ready to
crystallize round the seed of imperial prerogative 4.

1 Erdmannsdorffer, v. 242, 349 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Wur-
temberg, 41.

2 Moniteur, Oct. 2, 1805. s Corr. xi. 273, no. 9,309.

4 Hausser, iii. 577 ff. The Bavarian army is represented by the

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 103

If there was one body which might have been expected to
detect the hollowness of Napoleon's professed loyalty to the
Empire, it was the Diet at Ratisbon. But the Diet closed its
eyes, and accepted without protest the French assurances that
the war was undertaken in the interests of Germany. Not
a single voice was raised to protest against so transparent
a fiction. Posts placed round the city of Ratisbon proclaimed
the neutrality of the territory in Latin and French inscriptions.
The Diet declared itself neutral, it declined to mention the
Empire of Germany, it received bulletins from the French camp
announcing 'the prodigies which have avenged the Germanic
Empire for the invasion of one of its principal members,' it
refused to entertain the complaints of the Imperial Knights
whom the princes of South Germany and the allies of Napoleon
were now vigorously plundering of their rights. The sancti-
monious Dalberg uttered pious wishes for the preservation of
the Reich and the union of all German hearts 1.

The triumphal progress of the French arms was saluted by
the dithyrambic enthusiasms of the South German press, and
the Bavarian journalists affected to believe that the victory of
Ulm would restore the ancient independence of the Bavarian
race2. Meanwhile the diplomatists of Munich and Stuttgart,
of Karlsruhe and Darmstadt, were anxiously calculating the
possible profits of their latest political speculation, and filling
their respective chanceries with paper reconstructions of
Germany. The princes having once taken a side, were deter-
mined to lose no chance for lack of zeal, and pursued the
conqueror with professions and compliments, with suggestions
and inquiries.

The correspondence between the Emperor and his new ally
Frederick of Wurtemberg during the campaign of Ulm and
Austerlitz reads like a fragment of a piquant comedy. Napoleon

Moniteur (Oct. 2, 1805) as ' burning to measure itself against the oppres-
sors of the country,' and a good deal of capital is made of the Austrian
requisitions in Bavaria (ib. Oct. 3).

1 Hausser, iii. 583-4.

2 Id., iii. 599. Otto was instructed (Oct. 4, 1805) to inform the
Elector of Bavaria that Napoleon would not lay down arms until he, the
Elector, was placed in a position in which he might keep up an army of
50,000 men, and be entirely independent of Austria.

104 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

asks that Prince Paul of Wurtemberg may be sent to join him
at Munich, since the army of Wurtemberg is not sufficiently
considerable to afford the Prince adequate lessons in the art of
war. ' It is better that he should serve under my orders in the
French army.*' The Elector felicitates the Emperor on his
victories, ' which assure the political existence and the tran-
quillity of the south of Germany * ; he perfectly appreciates the
honour which is destined for Prince Paul ; but circumstances
will not permit him to accept it. The young man has a delicate
chest, and his brother, the Electoral Prince, a scapegrace, has
just announced his return to his duties and his father. When
the Emperor sends ' his brother ' a present of six Austrian guns,
the Elector replies that he will always conserve this precious
monument of his Imperial Majesty's glory ; that the Electoral
Prince has returned ; that he natters himself 8 that the example
of his father will impose upon him the duty of being faithful
to the protector and the august ally of the House of Wurtem-
berg.1 At the same time he takes the liberty of reminding
his Imperial Majesty that the time is rapidly approaching when
Austria will be compelled to sue for peace, and that his
Majesty, ' occupied with the great interests of Europe,'' may not
be able ' to enter into individual details ' concerning the interests
of his German allies. Has not the moment come when the
Elector of Wurtemberg may send one of his ministers to his
Imperial Majesty 'to recall to those whom he shall appoint for
the purpose, several subjects which will require local discussion
and knowledge ' ? 'I strongly approve,' answered the Emperor
from his camp at Reich, ' that you should send a minister to
me. ... In the instructions which you give to your minister,
you must determine what portion of Germanic usage must be
abolished. ... I mean first the Aulic Council, and a great part
of the attributions of the Diet of Ratisbon, which in truth
is no more than a miserable monkey-house (rCest plus qu'une
miserable singerie).'' The Baron de Norman was accordingly
sent as extraordinary envoy to consult with Talleyrand upon
the affairs of this Germanic Empire which both parties intended
to treat so cavalierly. At the same time the Elector, in return
for the Grand Cordon of the Legion of Honour, transmitted
the decoration of the Order of Wurtemberg to Napoleon.

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 105

'The annals of my house,' he wrote, 'will glory in daring to
count you in the number of those who have accepted this
honour.1

On November 16, Napoleon, who was writing from the
imperial palace at Schonbrunn, began to be explicit. ' I can
only,' he wrote, ' reiterate to you my firm intention to execute
my promises, and to this end I shall receive your notes with
pleasure. I think that you ought to do everything you can.
For instance, you might arrange with the Elector of Baden
to establish your own postal system. You might also get hold
of the equestrian order while declaring that your intention is
not to take its property, but to destroy a kind of sovereignty
which depends on Austria and incommodes the Electors. If
you think it would be useful to you to get hold of the Teutonic
commanderies so as to endow your own order, I don't see what's
to prevent you. ... If there is anything else you can do, let me
know, so that I can advise you, and so that in a treaty of peace
one can say in a word, " Everything which has been done by the
Electors is recognized." If you can manage to send two or three
hundred carriages here, I will send you the artillery which may
have belonged to you, and which Austria may have taken from

time to time, also the guns, of which I have a great quantity

It would be perhaps the moment for you to send some one to
St. Petersburg to your sister, in order to make her feel that hav-
ing projects so advantageous for her house, it would be singular
that Russia should be so strongly opposed to them ; that this
is even advantageous to Russia, since it would weaken Austria ;
and that it is not very advantageous to France, since France
could retain what she is giving to others. An adroit man
might turn to good account the circumstances and the dis-
content which the Emperor of Russia feels towards Austria.
I think that a mother imploring her son for the splendour of
her house would produce a good effect, and it would be possible
so to turn and draft the treaties that Russia's vanity would be
flattered by your aggrandizement. What I tell you, then, isn't
a thing of great importance, but you will feel that it also may
have its degree of utility. Why should not a mother obtain
from her son a letter of recommendation for her house ? It
is all very well to be the mother of an Emperor of Russia, but

106 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

one ought not to forget the house from which one springs.''
The uses of Wurtemberg are now sufficiently clear. The Wur-
temberg influence is to detach Russia from the Coalition, and
to help to recommend Napoleon to the Diet. In all things he
will be acting on the advice of the Electors, Electors enriched
with the spoils of the imperial nobility, who are, so to speak,
the Austrian garrison in Germany, and alienated from the Haps-
burgs by the acceptance of Austrian guns, and by participation
in the war which brings Napoleon to Schonbrunn.

The battle of Austerlitz broke the armies of Austria and
Russia, and diminished the utility of fraternal injunctions
from Stuttgart. The Frenchmen were showing fine sport, and
Frederick's blood was up now that the hounds were close upon
their quarry. He hears that the Bavarian troops have occupied
the Tyrol. * Might it not,' he asks, K be appropriate for me
similarly to order the occupation of that portion of the posses-
sions of the house of Austria which is found included (enclavee)
or interlaced with my territories ? ' The Teutonic Knights
and the immediate nobility — whose lands had been seized by
the Princes — had raised an outcry, and the Elector Arch-
chancellor was about to present their complaints to the Diet
of the Empire. It was quite sufficient to convert Frederick to
the unceremonious view of that ancient institution which his
august protector had not hesitated to profess. 'My satisfaction,''
he writes, alluding to the victory of Austerlitz, ' is too great to
permit me to fatigue you to-day, Sire, with these petty annoy-
ances (tracasseries) of Ratisbon, of this Diet which you have
so aptly termed a monkey-house, and in which I am now
recognizing the ridiculous characteristics as well as the malice
of these animals.'

But that the Arch-chancellor should play ' the great German
patriot ' was as unpleasing to Napoleon as to his correspondent.
' My minister,' he answered (December 13, 1805), in reference
to the affair of the knights, 'has orders to declare that what
you have done is under my guarantee, and that if the least
attempt to disturb it be made by the Germanic Body, so far
from maintaining that institution, I shall help to procure its
dissolution."' 'I dare flatter myself,' replied Frederick, 'that
the lesson which you have given, Sire, to the Elector Arch-

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 107

chancellor will calm his patriotic zeal and shelter us from his
boastings V

By treaties concluded at Brunn and Pressburg (December 12
and 26, 1805), between the Emperor Napoleon and the Elector
of Wurtemberg, the promises of the interview of Ludwigsburg
are translated into fact. The Elector becomes a king : his
territory is doubled : he is no longer pestered by imperial
rights, or imperial enclaves. And all was due to Napoleon.
Though his kingdom was the smallest in Europe, the joy of
the new sovereign was overflowing, and the Empress of Russia
was called upon to sympathize with dignities which had been
acquired through the defeat and humiliation of her son.

As the battle of Austerlitz decided the campaign, so the
Treaty of Pressburg (December 26, 1805) sealed the humiliation
of Austria, excluding the House of Hapsburg alike from Italy,
Switzerland, and the Rhine. The Tyrol and the Vorarlberg —
that great mountain barrier which commands the connection
between Italy and the Danube — was given to the Elector of
Bavaria, who received in addition the Principality of Eichstatt,
the remaining portion of the Bishopric of Passau, the town
and territory of Augsburg, the Bishoprics of Trent and Brixen,
the town of Lindau, the Margraviate of Bingen, and other
lordships of less importance. The Electors of Wurtemberg
and Baden divided between them the remaining Austrian
possessions in the West, and the only compensations which
Austria received for these huge sacrifices were the Electorate
of Salzburg, which in 1803 had been adjudged to the Archduke
Leopold (now transferred to the Principality of Wiirzburg),
and the right of appointing an Austrian archduke to the
post of Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. By the four-
teenth article of the treaty the domains of the Imperial Knights
situated within the territories of Bavaria and Wurtemberg
were mediatized. An advance in title and dignity was secured
to the Napoleonic allies and recognized by Austria. Bavaria
and Wurtemberg were henceforth monarchies ; the Elector of
Baden and the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt took the title

1 Corr. xi. 332, no. 9,391 ; 347, no. 9,412; 370, no. 9,444; 418, no.
9,501 ; 474, no . 9,567 ; Schlossberger, Politische und militarische Korre-
spondenZy 1-36.

108 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

of Grand Duke. But perhaps the most important concession
for the sovereigns of Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and Baden was the
declaration in the fourteenth article, that they should enjoy
complete and undivided sovereignty over their own States.
This clause practically shattered the links of dependence which
bound the three Courts to the chief of the Empire.

Yet, momentous as is the Treaty of Pressburg, there is
nothing to cause surprise in its stipulations, which indeed only
carry out the lines pursued by French diplomacy ever since the
first breach with Austria in 1792. Nay, to exclude Austria
from Germany and Italy, — is there not an old-world ring about
that policy ? Its lineaments would have been familiar to
Francis I, to Richelieu, and to Chauvelin. But it was not, for
all that, the inevitable, perhaps it was not the wisest policy
which Napoleon could have pursued. Talleyrand, the shrewdest
head in the French Empire, advised another course, believing
in the value of the old Franco- Austrian alliance which had been
the work of Bernis and of Kaunitz. His view was that Austria
should be given the Turkish provinces of Moldavia and
Wallachia, that the Republic of Venice should be re-established,
that the kingdom of Italy should be decisively separated from
the French Empire, and augmented by no accessions of territory.
Austria would thus be more than compensated for her losses in
Swabia. The apple of discord would be thrown between Vienna
and St. Petersburg, and England would no longer find allies on
the continent, for while Austria joined hands with France, the
Muscovite Empire, excluded from the Balkan peninsula, and
condemned to satiate its enormous ambitions in the East, would
be brought into inevitable collision with the rulers of India 1.

This scheme Napoleon rejected. Perhaps he reflected that
the Prussian alliance would be more valuable to him as a weapon
against England, for through Prussia he could enforce the
continental blockade on the North of Europe. Perhaps too
he felt that Austria would not accept the Danubian principali-
ties with the certainty of giving umbrage to her late ally, and
the very knowledge that such an offer had been made would
render the breach between France and Russia irreparable. The
scheme of Talleyrand was indeed conceived in a modest key,
1 Bigrion, Histoire de France, v. 19 ff. ; Lefebvre, ii. 235-6.

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 109

little consonant with Napoleon's ambitions. He determined to
cripple Austria once and for all, and by the arrangements of the
Peace of Press burg thought that he had effected his object.

The German Confederation had indeed been expressly recog-
nized in this treaty, but there was a general feeling in the air
that some large change was impending. In political pamphlets,
in diplomatic despatches, in the chatter of Ratisbon, a new Con-
stitution for Germany was a familiar topic, and when Napoleon
arrived in Munich on December 30, speculation and curiosity
became acute. The main purpose of the Emperor's stay in the
Bavarian capital was to celebrate the marriage between Eugene
and Augusta, to arrange the disposition of the French army in
Southern Germany, and to sound opinion as to the constitutional
settlement of the German Empire. For this last purpose it was
necessary to interview the French agent at Ratisbon, and General
Hedouville was exhaustively cross-examined upon the trend of
German opinion in that city and upon the sentiments of the
Arch-chancellor. Then Napoleon gave audience to Dalberg.
What passed in the hour's interview has escaped record — all but
the fact that the Arch-chancellor came out ' penetrated with
admiration.' We cannot, however, doubt that Dalberg seized the
opportunity of ventilating his favourite project of a German Con-
cordat, and that a picture was drawn of a Church disorganized
by secularizations, of vacant bishoprics, insufficient sees, and
unsettled diocesan frontiers \ At this particular moment such
words would chime in unexpected concert with Napoleon's
policy, for he had broken out into violent quarrel with the
Pope, who resented the French occupation of Ancona. Dalberg
suggested alike an argument and a threat which Napoleon was
not slow to insert in a correspondence of recrimination. ' The
Romans complain,' he wrote to the French ambassador at the
Curia, * that I have managed the affairs of Italy without them.
Ought it then to have happened as in Germany, where there

1 Kramer's eulogistic and uncritical biography represents Dalberg in an
heroic light. He was roundly abused by Napoleon for his independence,
and retorted with spirit and wit. (Kramer, Carl Theodor, Reichsfreyherr
von Dalberg, 1817 ; Gams, Geschichte der Kirche Christi im neunzehnten
Jahrhundert, i. 394 ; Hedouville to Talleyrand, Jan. 3, 1806, Affaires
etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Allemagne, 731.)

110 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

are no longer any solemnities, any sacraments, any religion ?
Tell them that if they do not stop, I will show them to Europe
as egoists, and that I will establish the affairs of the Church in
Germany with the Arch-chancellor and without them ] .' Nothing
could have been more pleasing to Dalberg than such a prospect.
He seemed to have made the Emperor a convert to his ideas.
Did not Napoleon recommend despatch in the matter of the
Concordat, saying frequently that owing to the delays of the
Curia souls were perishing? Then, too, the Arch-chancellor
was invited to celebrate the royal marriage. In a paroxysm of
enthusiastic gratitude he wrote a memoir urging the French
Emperor to undertake, like Charlemagne, the regeneration of
the Empire. But he was still attached to that venerable edifice,
the confusio divinitus conservata, and would not willingly have
it destroyed. Napoleon tranquillized his misgivings. He told
the Arch-chancellor that he had abandoned his first idea of a
general overthrow of the Reich, and with this hollow assurance
the vain and fatuous old gentleman returned to Ratisbon 2.

There ensued a period of rumours and suspicions, surprises
and suspense. The Diet understood as early as February that
the fate of the Empire was to be decided, and all its members
anxiously looked forward to the 'development of the grand
crisis.' Secret intelligence came from Munich, that the lesser
States of the Empire were to be preserved, but that the feudal
nexus with the House of Austria was to be dissolved, and that
though Bavaria, Franconia, and Swabia might continue to send
envoys to the Diet, they would no longer address themselves to
the Emperor or to the imperial Courts. But while the Arch-
chancellor was deliberating the organization of the Chapter of
Ratisbon and the election of a coadjutor, everybody knew that
the big business would be transacted in Paris 3.

1 Corr. xi. 529, no. 9,656.

2 Home to Hammond, Jan. 20 and 23, 1806 ; F. 0., Bavaria, 31. For
Dalberg's note (Jan. 17, 1806) on the Regeneration of the Germanic
Nation, see Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Allemagne, 731 : f Que V Empire
d 'Occident renaisse en VEmpereur Napoleon tel quil etait sous Charlemagne,
compose de PItalie, de la France et de l' Allemagne.'

3 Home to Hammond, Feb. 20, 1806 ; Home to C. J. Fox, March 14 and
23, 1806 ; F. 0., Bavaria, 31; Dalberg to Hedouville, March 19, 1808 ;
Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Allemagne, 731.

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 111

It was the habit of Napoleon, when large political changes
were impending, to invite memoranda and plans from his
ministers and their subordinates, and the spring of 1806 was
fertile in schemes. In February a memoir was drawn up in
the French Foreign Office, doubtless in accordance with the
Emperor's instructions, upon ' States to be formed in West-
phalia and along the Rhine 1 .' The writer pointed out that
as long as Prussia preserved her provinces in Westphalia and
especially East Frisia, all French plans against the British
Cabinet would fail; that Emden had replaced Hamburg as
continental distributor of British wares, and that measures
must be taken to close every port or quay to England from
the coasts of Holland to the mouths of the Elbe. The
writer concluded by suggesting the outlines of one or two
States, whose territory was to stretch from the Electorate of
Baden to the North Sea. This precious scheme, though con-
ceived in the Napoleonic vein, was too extravagant to suit the
needs of the hour. It would have involved instant war with
Prussia, and for this the Emperor of the French was not
prepared. A more modest craft was launched upon the waters.
In March the world was informed that Prince Joachim Murat,
the Emperor's brother-in-law and the Grand- Admiral of France,
had been intruded into the circle of the princes of the German
Empire as Grand Duke of Berg, a small Bavarian territory on
the Rhine ceded by treaty to France. The intelligence was
regarded as reassuring at Ratisbon. Surely, it was argued,
Napoleon would not have made Murat a Prince of the Holy
Roman Empire, if the Holy Roman Empire was forthwith to
be destroyed. But men who argued thus had still all to learn
about the restlessness of Napoleon's mind and the uncertainty
of his plans. Even as late as the middle of April, letters came
from Paris announcing that the 'new Carolingian Code,' as it
was then called, was still in the greatest confusion 2.

Meanwhile a fresh cause of perturbation arose from a new

1 Memoire sur les Mats a former en Westphalie et le long du Rhin ;
Affaires etrangeres, Memoires et Documents : Allemagne, 118.

2 Home to Fox, March 30 and April 20, 1806; F. 0., Bavaria, 31.
Bacher to Talleyrand, April 15, 1806 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. :
Allemagne, 731.

112 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

and utterly unlooked-for quarter. The Arch-chancellor's head,
never very strong, had been completely flustered by the Munich
visit. Napoleon and he, he and Napoleon, were entering upon
an era of constructive statesmanship, and while it was for
Napoleon to execute, it was for Dalberg to suggest the reforms
needed by Germany. He would begin, for instance, with the
formation of a Metropolitan Chapter for Catholic Germany.
It should be composed of twelve counts of the Empire, and
twelve doctors in the Canon Law, together with the Canons of
Mainz and Ratisbon. But a more important object was the
selection of a coadjutor, and Dalberg submitted three names
for Napoleon's approval. It was a gross betrayal of German
independence to refer a question of this kind to a foreigner,
for the coadjutor would succeed to the Arch-chancellorship,
and the Arch-chancellor was the conservator of the laws of
the Empire, and the representative of the Emperor in the
Diet. But Dalberg was now determined to take no step
without Napoleon's authority, and the names of the Count
of Stadion, the Count of Sternberg, and Baron Wessenberg
were sent to Hedouville to be transmitted to Paris on April 19.
Whether from contempt, accident, or policy, no answer was
forthcoming to these paltry communications. Dalberg began
to feel uneasy. At the beginning of April he received a hint
from some quarter that his town of Ratisbon had been
demanded by Bavaria, and his Principality of Aschaffenburg by
Hesse- Cassel. The treachery of Bavaria stung his confiding
heart with peculiar bitterness. Had not the Bavarian King
given him in writing the strongest assurances of friendship only
a few days before ? Whither could he turn for protection in
a lawless and treacherous world ? Then a happy thought
flashed into his head : he bethought him of Cardinal Fesch.

His Eminence Cardinal Fesch, Archbishop of Lyons and
Primate of the Gauls, was the uncle of the Emperor of the
French. He had speculated successfully in land and pictures, and
was reputed to possess one of the finest art collections in Paris.
A learned scholar has said that he united the greed and vanity
of a Corsican with the obstinacy and heaviness of the Basle
bankers, from whom upon his paternal side he was derived.
Though by no means destitute of ecclesiastical zeal, he hunted

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 113

fortune with the versatile tenacity of the Bonaparte family.
He had been in turn a seminarist, a constitutional priest, an
inspector of carts, a speculator in Church lands, a picture-
dealer, an archbishop, and a cardinal. He was now, having
amassed an enormous fortune, ambassador of the French Empire
to the Court of Rome. But to Fesch the Eternal City was
almost as distasteful as Tomi was to Ovid or Macedonia to
Cicero. Though he was conceited enough to imagine himself
a diplomatist, he quarrelled with everybody at the Papal Court
and pined to be permitted to spend part of the year at least
among the more familiar luxuries of Lyons and Paris. At one
point only had he been brought into connection with Germany.
Bavaria was anxious to make a special Concordat with the Pope,
and the influence of Fesch had already been enlisted in the
promotion of this object l.

The future was now luminous and hopeful to Dalberg. Fesch
alone could maintain the religious and political constitution of
Germany. With Fesch as coadjutor during his life, and
Arch-chancellor after his death, all would be serene : the Con-
cordat which would organize the Catholic Church in Germany
under the control of the Archbishop of Ratisbon ; the main-
tenance of the Electoral dignity and the Electoral State ; the
Pontifical confirmation of the Statutes of the Chapter of
Ratisbon ; the conservation of the German Empire itself. On
April 14 he broached the scheme to Hedouville, and five days
later emitted to Napoleon the following effusion : —

1 The estimable Germanic nation groans in the misfortunes of
political and religious anarchy. Sire, be the regenerator of
the Constitution ! Here are some wishes dictated by the state
of affairs ! Let the Duke of Cleves become an Elector ! Let
him obtain the octroi of the Rhine over the whole right bank !
Let the Cardinal Fesch be my coadjutor V

1 The correspondence of Fesch with Napoleon during the Roman
Embassy is printed by Ducasse, Histoire des negotiations diplomatiques
relatives auoc traites de Mortfontaine , de Luneville et d' Amiens, i. 13 if. Cf.
also Consalvi, Memoires, ii. 131-5 ; Lyonnet, Vie du Cardinal Fesch, i.
495-539, ii. 24-30 ; Masson, Napoleon et safamille, ii. 204-11, iii. 351-64,
iv. 413-32. Fesch's letter on the Bavarian question is unprinted (Fesch
to Talleyrand, Aug. 7, 1805, Affaires etranyeres, Correspondance Poli <que :
Baviere, 181). Cf. Sicherer, Staat und Kirche in Deutschland, 76-110.

FISHER I

114 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

It so happened that, on the very day upon which this letter
was despatched, Napoleon wrote to the Pope to withdraw his
ambassador from Rome. Nothing therefore could have been
more timely than the proposal of Dalberg. Yet the imbecility
and vagueness of his proposals provoked a reply at once
arrogant and precise. On April £6 Tallyrand wrote to Hedou-
ville that he had not thought fit to put the Arch-chancellor's
suggestions before the Emperor. If, however, the Arch-chancellor
was willing to sign a convention in virtue of which, while the
Emperor guaranteed his States and revenues on the one hand,
the Arch-chancellor engaged on the other to cause Cardinal
Fesch to be received and recognized as coadjutor within a month,
then Hedouville was at liberty to sign on his part. Dalberg
was horrified at the crudity of the French. Such a convention,
he said, would be simoniacal, contrary to canon law, a stain
on his honour; he had wished to treat directly with Cardinal
Fesch; he would never sign. But his counsellors advised him
to submit, and on May 7 the secret convention received its
signatures. 'I could not help,' wrote Hedouville, May 8,
' hurting the delicacy of the Elector by sounding him to-day as
to what he wanted for his family. The relation who interests
him most is his nephew, the minister of Baden at Paris V

On May 28 the nomination of Cardinal Fesch was announced
to the astonished Diet. His ancestors had in the fifteenth
century, so ran the official recommendation, distinguished them-
selves in Basle, and the force, the intelligence, and the great
influence of the eminent prelate rendered him admirably fitted
to discharge the office to which he would eventually be summoned.
It is needless to say that nobody was deceived, and that nobody
in the Diet had the courage to protest. And yet in the
natural course of events a Corsican parvenu, knowing little of
Germany, possessing no German, would come to be the Arch-
chancellor and senior Elector. He would preside over the
imperial elections and over the Diet, and it was in his custody
that the seal and the archives of the Empire would be kept.

1 Corr. xii. 375, no. 10,240 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Allemagne, 7 SI.
Napoleon wrote to inform Fesch, May 16. Ratifications were exchanged,
May 22. Dalberg wrote to inform the Pope, May 24, and to inform Fesch,
May 28.

i

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 115

In the opinion of the English envoy Germany had now received
a Stadtholder who, like Schimmelpenninck in Holland and
Melzi in Italy, was simply to be the passive transmitter of the
mandates of the Emperor of the French. At the special demand
of Fesch and with the consent of Napoleon, the bulls of institution
permitted the new coadjutor to retain, with his German offices
present and prospective, the Archbishopric of Lyons and the
Primacy of the Gauls \

Meanwhile ' the new Carolingian Code ' was being slowly
elaborated in Paris. On April 10 the Emperor wrote to
Talleyrand his views upon the small German princes whose
territories lay in the sphere of influence possessed by the
sovereigns of Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and Baden. ' If they are
left their independence, they will vote against France, either
because they are Austrians or because they have too many
relations with Austria, and because these little princes cannot
be reconciled with the sovereigns of Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and
Baden. The true interest of France is that the German Empire
should only be able to reorganize itself by the aid of a strong
and powerful direction. France has an equally real interest in
seeing the only three princes who since the Revolution have
frankly made common cause with her amply recompensed.
I should therefore be disposed to think that it would be
expedient to conclude a secret convention with the three
sovereigns whom I have just named, and to augment their
States by 150,000 or 200,000 souls without any direct inter-
vention on my part : in a word, to let them do it between
themselves, and to prevent them from pronouncing my name.
In this way the College of Princes would be deprived of some
Austrian votes, and a new difficulty would arise in the way of
establishing an equilibrium of votes between Austria and
Prussia. The three princes would be much more at my dis-
cretion than they are at present, because, having failed to receive
public sanction for their operations, they would find themselves

1 Home to Sir Francis Vincent, May 28, 1806, F. 0., Bavaria, 31 ;
Lyonnet, ii. 30, 620. He'douville writes of Dalberg, May 29, 1806 : ' La
seule chose qui Vait un peu affiige, a ete I'idee de plusieurs personnes qui ont
pense que sa demarche lui avait ete suggeree par la France.' — Affaires
etrangeresj Corr. Pol. : Allemagne, 731.

i2

116 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

in a violent situation ; and as their usurpations could only be
legally sanctioned by the imperial authority of Germany, it
would result that they would always be obliged to recur to
my support, and that I should consequently dispose of three
Electoral votes. German opinion would thereby be more divided,
which is all in favour of France V

According to this scheme, then, the Empire is preserved, but
the small princes of the south are sacrificed secretly to the
three allies of France. Talleyrand, who was assailed on all
sides by the petitions and complaints of the German envoys,
drew up a plan by which the petty sovereignties were to be
distributed among seven princes, the Kings of Bavaria and
Wiirtemberg, the Electors of Baden and Hesse, the Landgrave
of Hesse, the Prince of Nassau-Usingen, and the Duke of Berg.
In vain did the Foreign Minister entreat his master to settle
the map of Germany once and for all2. Napoleon's restless
mind was the despair of his subordinates. Scheme after scheme
was devised, corrected, torn up, and thrown into the fire. On
April 24 the Emperor wrote a note dividing Germany into
eight States, four of which, Bavaria, Baden, Wiirtemberg, and
a new State to be formed out of Berg, Cleves, Hesse-Darmstadt,
with Hanover, Hamburg, Bremen, and Liibeck, were to represent
French interests. ' After this division,' he continued, ' suppose
that one should destroy the Germanic Constitution, and annul
the little sovereignties for the profit of the eight large States,
one must make a statistical calculation to know if the four
States which are in the interests of France will lose or gain
more by this destruction than the four States which are not."'
A month later the destruction of the Empire is a settled thing.
1 There will be no more Diet at Ratisbon, since Ratisbon will
belong to the Empire V All kinds of unexpected side-winds
came to perplex the current. At one time the Emperor took
it into his head that the Prussian alliance would never be very

1 Corr. xii. 266-8, no. 10,071.

2 A. F. iv. 1,706 b. c Assailli de toutes parts,' concludes the writer, ( soit
de reclamations et de plaintes, soit de demandes que la raison et la moderation
nont pas dictees, fose dire a V. M. que fai une sorte d'interet personnel a ce
que le sort de toutes ces petites souverainetes de t Allemagne soit unefois et
irrevocablement fixe.'

3 Napoleon to Talleyrand, May 31, 1806 ; Corr. xii. 416, no. 10,298.

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 117

useful, since Prussia could never command the Sound. That
being so, why should not Hanover be restored to England, and
Prussia compensated in Central Germany ? Then granted that
the Empire was to be dissolved and a new Confederation founded
in its place, who were to be the members of the new body ? In
the Rue de Grenelle the pale black-haired hypochondriac
Labesnardiere toiled away with the learned Pfeffel — the chief
authority in German affairs in the French Foreign Office — at
the elaboration of draft after draft. At first it was proposed
that the Kings of Naples, Italy, and Holland were to be included,
and that crowns should be distributed to the rulers of Baden
and Darmstadt, Berg and Hesse-Cassel. This was grandiose
and Carolingian, but it presented difficulties, and Talleyrand no
doubt exerted his influence in favour of a more modest scheme.
Meanwhile the old disgraceful scenes of bribery and corruption
were re-enacted in Paris. Hamburg bought its independence
for several million marks. The Duke of Mecklenburg presented
the French minister with a douceur of 80,000 Friedrichsd'or.
It is needless to continue the shameful catalogue. Bavaria,
Wiirtemberg, and Baden, who had all served in the war and
had some claims on the consideration of the Emperor, were
permitted to discuss certain questions with the agents of the
French Foreign Office. But their envoys were not allowed to
see the whole act until it was finally submitted for their signature.
On the night of July 6-7 Talleyrand surprised Von Gagern, the
envoy of the Prince of Nassau, by reading out to him the fateful
document. But the news was not yet common property, nor
were any copies of the act allowed to pass out of the French
minister's hands. It was necessary first to secure the military
position of France in Southern Germany, and Napoleon wrote
to Berthier ordering concentration so that he might ' have in
line and almost in Vienna 232,000 men V Such a demonstration
would silence all protests and ease the exchange of ratifications.
On July 17 it was judged that Berthier was ready, and the
Treaty of the Confederation of the Rhine was signed in Paris.
The act was laid before each envoy separately, and the princes
were given twenty-four hours in which to choose between ac-
ceptance and mediatization. Of the princes named in the act,
1 Napoleon to Berthier, July 11, 1806 ; Corr. xii. 533, no. 10,479.

118 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

only one — the Prince of Lichtenstein — refused to accept. Rather
than abandon his post in the Austrian service he resigned his
territory to his son.

Fifteen princes of the Empire joined the league — the Kings
of Bavaria and Wurtemberg, Charles of Dalberg (Arch-chancellor
of the German Empire), the Elector of Bavaria, the Duke of
Cleves and Berg (Prince Joachim Murat), the Landgrave of
Hesse-Darmstadt, the two Princes of Nassau-Usingen and
Nassau- Weilburg, the two Princes of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
and Hechingen, the two Princes of Salm-Salm and Salm-Kirburg,
the Prince of Isenberg-Birstein, the Duke of Ahrenburg, and
the Count de la Leyen.

These fifteen sovereigns declared themselves separated for
ever from the territory of the German Empire, and united by
a special confederation under the name of Confederate States of
the Rhine. The common interests of this Confederation were
to be treated in a Diet convened at Frankfort, and composed of
two Colleges, the College of Kings and the College of Princes.
It was given to the Arch-chancellor to prepare a ' fundamental
statute ' which should determine when and how these bodies
should deliberate. The College of Kings was to be composed
of the Kings of Bavaria and Wurtemberg, of the Elector Arch-
chancellor, who by this act received the additional title of
Prince-Primate, and of the Princes of Baden, Berg, and Hesse-
Darmstadt, now promoted to the Grand-Ducal rank, and
accorded the privileges and prerogatives attaching to royalty.
The nine other confederates were to form the College of Princes.
When the two Colleges of the Diet sat together the Prince-
Primate was to preside, when they sat apart the Duke of
Nassau would preside over the princes, and the Prince-Primate
over the kings. The Emperor of the French was Protector of
the Confederation, and enjoyed the right of nominating the
successors of the Prince-Primate.

Then followed certain provisions to promote a simplification
of German territory. Frontiers were rectified in order to
obviate the inconveniences resulting from enclaves ; all the con-
federates renounced once and for all any and every pretension
they might have had upon one another's territory ; the free
towns, small dukes, counts, and princes, whose territories were

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 119

intermingled with those of the confederates, were mediatized
and forced to descend from the position of sovereign to that
of subject. Thus the King of Bavaria obtained Nuremberg,
two commanderies of the Teutonic Order, and twelve or thirteen
other principalities. The free town of Frankfort went to the
Prince-Primate, and twenty principalities were absorbed by
Wiirtemberg. It is unnecessary here to give all the details,
but there was not a member of the Confederation who did not
receive some substantial share of the plunder.

Yet some protection was afforded to the unfortunate princes
who saw themselves so suddenly deprived of their ancient
sovereign rights. Their patrimonial property was reserved to
them, together with all those seigneurial and feudal rights which
were not essentially inherent in sovereignty, and they were
allowed to possess all the privileges which the confederate princes
themselves enjoyed on their own domains l. In criminal cases
they could only be tried by their peers, and their property could
never be confiscated. They were free to reside wherever they
liked, provided that it was in one of the States which were
members or allies of the Confederation of the Rhine, and their
functionaries were either to pass into the service of the new
princes or to receive a pension. Finally the confederate princes
were empowered to possess in full sovereignty the lands of the
Imperial Knights situated within their several States.

By these masterly provisions the political map of Germany
was simplified, and more was done for the cause of good govern-
ment in the valleys of the Danube, the Neckar, and the Main,
than had been effected by all the policies of the eighteenth
century. It is idle to weep over the lot of a Prince of Oettingen
or a Count of Fugger. These petty Courts, full of picturesque
anomalies, deserved to disappear. They were fatal to the interests
of administrative unity ; they choked the growth of large
political ideas ; they were the hotbeds of tiny and contemptible
intrigue. Yet little sympathy can be extended to the larger
powers who cringed and clamoured for their extinction. They
were alike traitors to a great historic tradition, and blind to

1 Some dispute arose as to the scope of these concessions (art. 27),
especially in connection with the phrase ' basse et moyenne justice. ' It was
generally taken to mean justice in first and second instance.

120 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

the higher things of the future. It was one of those moments
in history when vulgar greed is made the instrument of social
and political improvement.

It was a great occasion for Napoleon. He was an artist in
affairs, and revelled in the excitement of political composition.
Many years before he had said that if the German Empire had
not existed, it would be necessary to create it. Yet now he
was destroying all that was confused, all that was obsolete, all
that was obscure and inimical to progress in that 'vast and
mysterious Germany,1 which had so long lain helplessly swathed
in her mediaeval bandages. Waste, perplexity, ineffectiveness,
were indeed abhorrent to his clear and classical spirit of order,
but in this matter he was not actuated by altruistic motives.
If he made his German confederates masters and lords in their
own homes, it was in order that by this very mastery they
might more effectually serve the master and lord of France.
This, indeed, is the main purpose of the Confederation of the
Rhine, and the subject of some important provisions which
must now be summarized.

It was first stipulated that the princes of the Confederation
should not take service of any kind, save in the Confederate
States or with the allies of the Confederation. Secondly, it
was provided by article 35, that 'there should be between
the French Empire and the Confederate States of the Rhine,
collectively and separately, an alliance in virtue of which every
continental war, in which one of the contracting parties might
be involved, would become immediately common to all the
others.' Thirdly, the contingent of soldiers to be furnished in
case of war by each of the allies was fixed. France must supply
200,000 men, Bavaria 30,000, Wlirtemberg 12,000, Baden 8,000,
Berg 5,000, Darmstadt 4,000, Nassau and the small princes
4,000, and these armaments were to be put on foot only in
pursuance of an invitation addressed by the Emperor to each of
the allied powers. Lastly, the Confederation was not closed :
it was to be open ' to all other princes and States of Germany
whom it shall be found to the common interest to admit.1
Although the tenor of this clause would seem distinctly to
imply that the confederates would be consulted as to the
admission of new members, there is no instance in which this

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 121

was done. The admissions were regulated by Napoleon alone,
and in the end all Germany passed under the common yoke.

The French government had, as we have seen, taken careful
precautions against resistance in Germany. ' I send you to-
day,' wrote Napoleon to Berthier, July 16, 1806, 4a treaty
which I desire you to keep to yourself, and which I wish to
have sanctioned before my army repasses the Rhine; by this
means I shall have no dispute upon this point V The mandate
went out to Berthier that the ratifications were to be exchanged
at Munich on July 25, and the French general possessed in
a numerous and well-equipped army the most solid of argu-
ments for despatch. Yet the treaty aroused many misgivings
in the Chancelleries of Munich and of Stuttgart. The King
of Bavaria saw 'with pain' the elevation of the Prince of
Lichtenstein ; he objected to the College of Princes ; he was
suspicious of the Federal Council, and trusted that it would not
take cognizance of any affairs relative to the internal interests
of the several States except upon the formal demand of the
parties directly interested. Both Bavaria and Wiirtemberg
objected to the French protectorate, and to the right claimed
by the Emperor of naming the Arch-chancellor2. But what
was the use of drafting notes ? It was well understood that
unless the princes swallowed the whole document, the French
army would not recross the Rhine. On July 27 the ratifica-
tions were exchanged, and the South German States had sold
themselves into slavery 3.

The text of the treaty reached Dalberg on July 24, and
plunged him in 'veritable desolation.'' General Hedouville
reminded him that the new order of things was but the
accomplishment of the wishes which he himself had expressed
in his two notes of January 1 7. ' The Arch-chancellor cried
out with pain that he had not meant to abolish the Germanic

1 Corr. xii. 547, no. 10,502.

2 Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Baviere, 182.

3 e Quoique les echanges riayent pu avoir lieu le 25, cette date sera con-
servee dans tous les proces-verbauoc.' — Otto to Talleyrand, July 29, 1806.
Wiirtemberg made a formal protest against the cession of Tuttlingen to
Bavaria which Berthier refused to accept. Otto prevented Bavaria from
protesting on an equally trivial point. Otto to Talleyrand, August 3, 1806 ;
Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Baviere , 182.

122 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Constitution, but on the contrary to consolidate it, and to
assure to it the most powerful protector by lawfully placing the
crown of Germany upon the august forehead of His Majesty
the Emperor Napoleon."' On the 25th he declared that he
would abdicate, retire to Paris, and ratify in the name of
Cardinal Fesch, for never would he consent to the spoliation
of the orphan and the widow. On the morning of the 26th,
however, this effervescence had passed away, and he allowed
himself to be persuaded to sign. Four days later he was even
enthusiastic over the new order of things. 'He is already
recompensed,' wrote Hedouville, ' by the sweetness of being able
to console a great number of interesting individuals whose lot
depends on his, and especially by the hope of seconding the
intentions of the august monarch whose protection will bring
order, calm, and happiness to this part of Germany.' By July 31,
he was planning schemes for the organization of the Assembly
at Frankfort, and looking forward to the hour when he should
go there to proclaim the august Protector of the Confederation 1.
On August 1 the Baron d'Albini, on behalf of the Prince-
Primate, communicated the treaty to the Diet of Ratisbon, the
text accompanied by an important and characteristic declara-
tion. In this the Emperor of the French declared that he ' no
longer recognized the existence of the German Constitution,
while acknowledging the entire and absolute sovereignty of
each of the princes whose States at present compose Germany.'
He had accepted the title of Protector of the Rhine, but only
'with a view to peace, and in order that his mediation, con-
stantly interposed between the most feeble and the most strong,
should avert all manner of dissension and trouble.' The docu-
ment concluded with asserting that His Majesty had declared
that he would never extend the boundaries of France beyond
the Rhine. To that promise he had been faithful. Now his
sole desire was to employ the means which Providence had con-
fided to him to free the seas, to liberate commerce, and to assure
the repose and happiness of the world 'K

1 Hedouville to Talleyrand, July 26, 30, 31, 1806 ; Affaires etrangeres,
Corr. Pol. : Allemagne, 732.

2 The text of the Dictatum Ratisbonae is printed in Winkopp, Der
rheinische Bund, i. 48 ff.

THE CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE 123

The members of the Diet, delegates for the most part of the
conspiring and confederate States, openly approved the doom,
nor was there a stir of arms in Vienna. On August 6 Francis
formally renounced his imperial title, and the Holy Roman
Empire was at an end.

Chief Authorities : Hausser, Deutsche Geschichte ; Alombert et Colin,
Histoire de la guerre de 1805 en Allemagne ; Lefebvre, Histoire des Cabinets
de V Europe ; Martens, Histoire des Traites ; Schlossberger, Politische und
militarische Correspondent Friedrichs von Wiirtemberg mit Napoleon I',
Preussische Jahrbucher, xiv. 577-616 ; Winkopp, Der rheinische Bund ;
H. von Gagern, Mein Antheil an der Politik.

CHAPTER VI

THE FALL OF PRUSSIA

( II faut que cette guerre soit la derniere et que ses auteurs soient si severe-
merit punis que quiconque voudra desormais prendre les armes contre le
peuple francais sache bien avant de s' engager dans une telle entreprise
quelles peuvent en etre les consequences.'— Napoleon.

Hardly had the federation of the Rhine been formed when
it was called upon to receive the baptism of fire, for in Septem-
ber 1806 war broke out between France and Prussia. The
effects of this war were so momentous, leading as it did to the
establishment of French hegemony in Northern Germany, that
it will be necessary here to indicate the circumstances out of
which it arose.

Ever since the Peace of Basle in 1795, the House of Hohen-
zollern had managed to preserve its neutrality. While the
Southern States had been overrun with French and Austrian
armies, Prussia had pursued a policy of peaceful and inglorious
self-aggrandizement. Her finances were unflourishing, her king
was timid, and upon a narrow view of Prussian interests there
was something to be said for the lucrative friendship of France.
Nations are slow to unlearn a diplomatic tradition, when once
it has been blackened by powder ; and Prussia had been too
long accustomed to find her arch-enemy in Vienna, to make
researches in other quarters. She still remembered the long
series of Silesian duels, in which the greatest of her kings,
pitted against overwhelming odds, had achieved the reputation
of his country. The contest over the Bavarian succession and
the keen rivalries over the partitions of Poland were of more
recent date, and the jealousy of threescore years flamed out
anew over the squalid turmoil of the indemnities. The allies of
Austria were England and Russia, and with these countries the
Court of Berlin had fewer points of antagonism. Yet if the
Prussians had forgotten the English desertion of Frederick

THE FALL OF PRUSSIA 125

the Great in the Seven Years' War, they conceived that there
was reason to fear the commercial and maritime ascendency of
our country. The instability of Russian policy, so frequently
disturbed by revolutions of the palace, had passed into a
proverb, nor could it be forgotten that Russian armies had
twice in recent times pierced into the heart of Brandenburg,
and that the splendid military machine of the Great Frederick
had been shattered by a Russian victory. Colonel Massenbach
was an intelligent and patriotic officer, with more than the
usual allowance of political imagination. He served the
Prussian government with pen and sword, and was not afraid
to speak his mind. But he never ceased to maintain that
Austria was the natural and immortal enemy of his country,
and that the true interests of Prussia lay in a close alliance
with France.

The Court of Berlin gradually awoke from its slumbers
to realize that peril might arise in the west. In 1803 the
French occupied Hanover, seized Cuxhaven, blocked the Elbe
and the Weser; in 1804 came the execution of the Due
d'Enghien and the abduction of Rumbold. A war-party grew
up in Berlin, headed by the beautiful and spirited Queen Louise,
supported by the Duke of Brunswick and the Prince of
Hardenberg, by Beyme and Lombard among the ministers, by
Bliicher and Ruchel among the generals. Two policies were
now face to face, peace or war, freedom or servitude, the
coalition or Napoleon. The year which ended in Austerlitz
was the crowning year of torture and indecision. On the one
hand Russia and Austria were arming against Napoleon, but
on the other hand France was offering to Prussia the bait of
Hanover. As the balance was trembling, the King of Prussia
heard that French troops were marching upon the Danube,
through the Prussian territories of Anspach and Baireuth.
That news was decisive. Turning to Hardenberg he said,
'Things are reversed,' and threw himself into the arms of
Alexander of Russia. There was an interview at Potsdam,
a famous oath at the tomb of the Great Frederick, and Prussia,
fortified by the friendship of the Czar, mobilized her army to
give effect to an ultimatum which Napoleon would never accept.
Rarely has a great transaction been more wofully mismanaged.

126 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

The Prussians loitered, though they had everything to gain by
speed; the Austrians and Russians hurried, though they had
everything to gain by delay; and Austerlitz was fought and
won before Haugwitz, the Prussian envoy, had presented his
ultimatum.

The Emperor of the French plumbed the situation to its
depths, and overwhelmed the miserable ambassador and his
hollow congratulations in a scene of studied sarcasm and
violence. A far-sighted and spirited statesman would have
resented these insults, and urged his government to throw their
army upon the long line of the French communications. But
Haugwitz, cowed by Napoleon, and believing that war would
spell instant disaster, permitted himself to sign the Treaty
of Schonbrunn, which gave Hanover to Prussia in exchange
for three small and widely-scattered territories, Anspach,
Neufchatel, and Wesel. It would have been difficult to con-
struct a treaty which in appearance so favourable, was in reality
so damaging to the good name of Prussia. The Court of
Berlin had guaranteed the neutrality of Hanover in 1795, and
fallen short of her duty in permitting it to be occupied by the
French in 1803. While Haugwitz was toiling over the wintry
roads towards Vienna, the Prussians were eagerly counting upon
English friendship and English subsidies in the event, which
then seemed inevitable, of a breach with Napoleon. Indeed,
Hardenberg had solemnly assured the Russian minister that
Hanover should never pass from English hands without the
consent of the Court of St. Petersburg. Yet all obligations of
honour were now thrown to the winds. Napoleon required of
Prussia that she should rob England, and Haugwitz consented
to the transaction.

When the terms of the treaty became known in Berlin there
were general and loud expressions of indignation, so loud that
an order was issued to the officers of the garrison to abstain
under severe penalties from alluding to the state of public
affairs 1. But since the rejection of the treaty would bring war,
and the acceptance of it disgrace, it was resolved to find
salvation in amendments. Prussia proposed that she should

1 Colin, Vertraute Briefe uber Preussen, i. 160 ; Jackson to Fox,
March 22, 1806, F. 0., Prussia, 71.

THE FALL OF PRUSSIA 127

not take Hanover at once, but that she should keep it as
a deposit till the conclusion of a general peace. The solution
was ingenious, for it seemed to harmonize appetite and honour :
but Napoleon would not hear of it. Indeed Haugwitz was
compelled to return to Berlin with a treaty even more dis-
advantageous than the terms of Schdnbrunn, for it explicitly
bound his government to exclude England from the mouths
of the Elbe and the Weser. If the Prussian army had still
been in its cantonments in Upper Saxony and on the Main,
harnessed and accoutred for the fray, it is possible that Napoleon
would not have pressed, and that Frederick William would not
have conceded the points in dispute. But in an access of
pitiable economy, the heads of the war and finance departments
in Berlin advised the reduction of the army to a peace footing,
and in the very midst of a critical negotiation Prussia demobi-
lized her forces. From that moment, as the British envoy Jack-
son remarked, ' the hopes of obtaining any remission of the terms
imposed at Vienna became very faint V Indeed, the new and
more onerous treaty was accepted at once by the feeble govern-
ment of Frederick William, though it brought in its immediate
train a breach with England and the loss of one-fourth of the
Prussian revenue by the closure of the ports.

The formation of the Confederation of the Rhine later on in
the summer added to the disquietude of Berlin. But Napoleon
had no desire to force on hostilities, and proposed that a con-
federation of the North might be formed under Prussian
hegemony. He would acquiesce absolutely, so Frederick William
was assured, 'in all the measures which the King of Prussia
might judge to be agreeable to his interests,' and it was even
suggested that the House of Hohenzollern should assume the
imperial rank2. These proposals were flattering to Prussian
vanity, and if the negotiations for the Northern league had
gone smoothly, war might perhaps have been postponed. But
the whole scheme, as Napoleon possibly divined, proved to be
illusory. Saxony disliked the thoughts of a Prussian Emperor,
and had no fancy for a close union with Berlin. The Elector
of Hesse- Cassel aimed at forming a league of his own, small

1 Jackson to Fox, April 3, 1806 ; F. 0., Prussia, 71.

2 Bailleu, Preussen und Frankreich, ii. 488-99.

128 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

and neighbourly, with himself for Protector. The two Meck-
lenburg dynasties were Slavonic, and held aloof. The Duke of
Oldenburg was a relation of the Czar, a circumstance productive
of difficulty, and Napoleon refused to permit the absorption of
the Hanseatic towns into the Prussian system K

Alarming rumours, borne on every wind, mingled with this
irritating trickle of diplomatic disappointments. It was rumoured
that Fulda, which belonged to the Prince of Orange, the brother-
in-law of the Prussian King, had been offered to Hesse-Cassel
in order to draw him into the Confederation of the Rhine ;
that Bavaria was to have Baireuth ; that the French army was
mobilizing in the south ; that the Landgrave of Hesse-Darm-
stadt was to be King of Westphalia ; that the county of Mark
was to be wrenched from Prussia and given to Murat, and that
French troops were pouring into Wesel. The Prussian army,
which had been mobilized in 1805 and then demobilized, was
restless, dissatisfied, and burning for the fray 2.

Napoleon did not want war with Prussia, but if the Prussians
wanted war with him, well, they should have it. He had just
consolidated the imperial system at home ; he had placed Louis
on the throne of Holland and Joseph on the throne of Naples,
and he was embroiled with the Pope. A Calabrian revolt,
fostered by the English, who held Sicily, was threatening the
unsettled foundations of the Neapolitan throne, and Napoleon's
eye was fixed upon Calabria. At the same time he had opened
out negotiations with the ministry of Fox, which had come into
power in England in the month of April. If Sicily were ceded
to the Neapolitan kingdom, Napoleon would be prepared to
restore Hanover to the Guelphs. In the interval of peace he
would build a navy, and then what might he not accomplish ?
Constantinople, Egypt, India — these were dazzling visions.

On August 6 the news came to Berlin that Napoleon had
offered Hanover to England ; Hanover, concerning which
Talleyrand only a month ago had reassured the Prussian envoy
* in the most positive manner and at the express order of the

1 Preussische Jahrbiicher, xiv. 577-616 ; Archivfur sdchsische Geschichte,
vi. 36 ff. ; Flathe, Geschichte des Kurstaates und Konigreichs Sachsen,
ii. 633.

2 Bailleu, ii. 489, 93, 504.

THE FALL OF PRUSSIA 129

Emperor.' The cup of disillusion was filled. To obtain
Hanover Prussia had undergone anguish, humiliation, and
material loss ; it was the one compensation for insults accepted,
shipping destroyed, commerce intercepted. And now Hanover
was coolly offered to England. It seemed obvious at Berlin
that Napoleon had a settled plan for the ruin of the one solid
unconquered German power. Had not the French ambassador
urged Prussia into war with Sweden, in order that, seizing
Pomerania for herself, she might relinquish the county of Mark
to Murat, the new Grand-Duke of Berg? Were not French
troops pouring into Wesel ? Was not Murat's lawless conduct
a standing threat of war ? There were rumours that the French
troops had occupied Wurzburg and were advancing on Saxony
and Prussia. On August 8 the King appealed to the Czar.
' He intends to destroy me,' he wrote ; * will you see this, Sire,
with indifference 1 ? ' On the 9th the orders were issued for the
mobilization of the Prussian army. Alexander, too, was ready
to fight.

In the period of heated suspense before the actual outbreak
of hostilities an event occurred which caused the most intense
indignation throughout Germany. On the very day, so it would
appear, upon which the ratifications of the act of the Rhenish
Confederacy were exchanged at Munich, the Bavarian govern-
ment was required to discover the authors of two treatises, one
of which bore the significant title ■ Germany in her Deep
Humiliation V It will be remembered that after the battle
of Austerlitz the French army remained cantoned in Southern
Germany, and that its presence was a material factor in securing
the prompt acceptance of the act of Confederation. This
army lived on the land, sucked it dry, and was guilty of some
gross outrages. To the indignation which resulted the pam-
phlets in question gave vigorous expression. It was represented
that since the days of Tilly and Wallenstein Bavaria had seen
nothing so bad ; that during the last six months she had
suffered as much through the French occupation as if she had
had to maintain an army of 200,000 men for several years at

1 Bailleu, ii. 509.

2 Otto to Talleyrand, July 28 and August 24, 1806 ; Affaires etrangeres,
Corr. Pol. : Baviere, 182.

fisher K

130 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

the ordinary rate of pay; and that Napoleon was clearly
attempting to enslave Germany.

The authorship of these pamphlets was not discovered, but
some booksellers were arrested and brought before a French
military court at Braunau, an Austrian town still in French
occupation. Six were condemned to death, and of these one,
Palm of Nuremberg, was executed (August 25) as the publisher
of ' Germany in her Deep Humiliation.' The man was known
to be an upright, simple, God-fearing burgher ; a citizen of an
ancient city, once free and imperial ; condemned to death by
the verdict of seven French colohels in time of peace for
a pamphlet written in Vienna which he had never read. All
Germany was thrilled with indignation at this outrage on civic
liberty, and with the emotion still vivid upon her Prussia
plunged into war. Never was an army or a people more
confident of success.

The end of Prussian vainglory came with surprising quick-
ness. Swiftly marching through the gorges of the Thuringian
forest, Napoleon won a decisive victory over the Prussian army
at Jena and Auerstadt on October 14, and a fortnight later he
was in Berlin. In a proclamation of November 12 he said with
perfect truth, 'The whole of the Prussian monarchy is in my
power,' and indeed, save for 15,000 men in Silesia and some
garrisons in the Baltic fortresses, the Prussian army was dis-
persed or destroyed. It remained to utilize the victory and to
remould the political conditions of Northern Germany.

Among the allies of Prussia in the Jena campaign was the
Elector Frederick Augustus of Saxony, an elderly, pacific, and
unambitious prince, whose little army of 21,000 men was no
match for the big battalions of his nearest neighbours, Austria
and Prussia. The Saxons had been drawn against their will
into the crusade against revolutionary France, but once success-
fully extricated in 1796, had no mind to renew the hazards of
war. But though it was wise to be unambitious, it was fatal
to be unintelligent, and the policy of Dresden lacked intelli-
gence. ' If automatic regularity could be a solid basis for
States,' said a young Austrian envoy destined to be the most
famous statesman in Europe, * Electoral Saxony would have

THE FALL OF PRUSSIA 131

been invulnerable V There were three possible lines of action
open to the Elector. He might make a formal treaty with
Prussia, he might join the French connection by entering the
Confederation of the Rhine, or he might proclaim and empha-
size his independence. The French government skilfully
intimated that it would acquiesce in either of these alternatives,
and would gladly see the Elector assume a higher title.
Wavering between these policies, on the one hand tempted by
France but loathing her principles, on the other hand urged
by Prussia but suspecting her power, the ministers of Frederick
Augustus wasted the precious moments in futile proposals.
When war broke out in October 1806, it found them still
undulating in indecision. The Elector, while sending pacific
assurances to Napoleon, allowed the Prussian troops to enter
his territory.

Circumstances forced him into war. The Prussian troops
were at hand while Napoleon was far off, and the Elector must
either aid Prussia or fight her. In this crisis he acted with
signal feebleness. He ordered his army to effect a junction
with the Prussian troops, while at the same time he assured
Napoleon that he would not permit it to pass the Saxon
frontier. But if the Elector proposed, the Prussian generals
disposed, and the Saxon contingent was swept along into the
Thuringian gorges, where it experienced heavy losses at Schleitz
and Saalfeld.

Napoleon had accurately gauged the situation of Saxony.
He remembered that the Electorate had been invaded by
Frederick the Great, and made the cockpit of a desperate war ;
he knew of old the rivalries of Dresden and Berlin ; he saw that
with a completely open frontier on the Prussian side, and a
small army, the Elector was unable to resist the Prussian
invasion. There had been no formal alliance signed between
Frederick Augustus and Frederick William ; there had been no
formal declaration of war from the Court of Dresden, and
the Saxon representative still continued to reside in Paris.
Napoleon determined to spare the Elector, to detach him from
Prussia, and to convert an unwilling foe into a useful ally. On
October 3, while staying with Dalberg at Aschaffenburg, he

1 Metternich, Memoires, i. 33.
k2

132 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

invited the Arch-chancellor ' confidentially to inform the Elector
of Saxony that his best course in case the arms of His Majesty
should triumph in his country would be not to leave it, and
then he would not be treated as an enemy V On October 7 he
declared in his message to the Senate that ' Saxony was invaded,
and that the wise prince who governed it was forced to act
against his will, and the interest of his peoples.' Even as his
armies were pushing through the depths of the Thuringian
forest, he issued a proclamation to the peoples of Saxony in the
following terms : —

* Saxons, the Prussians have invaded your territory. I enter
it to deliver you. They have violently dissolved the bond
which united your troops'' (alluding to the fusion of a Saxon
with two Prussian battalions), 'and have united them to their
army. You must pour out your blood not only for interests
foreign to you, but even for interests contrary to you. Saxons,
your lot is now in your hands. Will you hesitate between
those who put you under the yoke, and those who wish to
protect you? My success will assure the existence and in-
dependence of your prince, of your nation. The success of the
Prussians will impose on you eternal claims. To-morrow they
will ask for Lusatia, and the day after for the Elbe-bank. But
what do I say ? Have they not demanded everything ? Have
they not for long tried to force your sovereign to recognize
a sovereignty, which, if it were imposed on you, would efface
you from the rank of nations ? Your independence, your con-
stitution, your liberty will then only exist in recollection, and
the masses of your ancestors would be indignant to see you
reduced without resistance by your rivals to a slavery prepared
for so long, and your country sunk to be a Prussian province V

After the battle of Jena some 300 Saxon officers and 7,000
men fell into Napoleon's hands. He summoned the officers
round him in the hall of the University of Jena, told them
that he had only taken up arms to assure the independence
of the Saxon nation ; that their sovereign, whose qualities he
recommended, had shown extreme feebleness in allowing the
Prussians to enter his territory; that the Saxons must join

1 Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Allemagne, 732 ; Senfft, Memoires, 12.

2 Corr. xiii. 315, no. 10,949 ; 334, no. 10,978.

THE FALL OF PRUSSIA 133

the Confederation of the Rhine under the protection of France,
a protection which was not new, since for 200 years, without
French aid, they would have been invaded either by Austria
or by Prussia. The prisoners were then sent home, after giving
their parole that they would never again serve against France.
On October 21 the Emperor wrote to the Elector from Halle,
saying that he had ordered a cessation of hostilities against the
Saxons, that he would send a minister to settle the terms of
peace, and that he was looking forward with pleasure to making
the acquaintance of His Highness and the Electress.

Saxony, then, was to be saved, but not without punishment.
On the day after Jena she was sentenced to a war contribution
of 25,375,000 francs. All her cannon, munitions of war, shoes,
military clothing, salt, and magazines, were appropriated to the
use of the Grand Army, and before the French occupation
came to an end, the military requisitions had mounted to
32,000,000 francs. The capital was held by a Bavarian garri-
son and governed by a French officer, and the furniture of the
English embassy was packed up for Paris. A decree of October
23, 1806, divided the Electorate and the small Thuringian
States which adjoined it into four arrondissements, and the civil
and military administration of these districts was lodged in the
hands of French intendants until the close of the war.

Meanwhile negotiations went on at Berlin for the conversion
of the armistice into a peace. From these discussions it was
clear that Napoleon was seeking not only to rivet Saxony to
France, but also to embroil her permanently with Prussia. He
therefore insisted that she should accept a fragment of the
territory of her late ally, and that the whole Saxon army should
forthwith join forces with the French and share the rest of the
campaign. These harsh demands, though preserved in essence,
were somewhat softened in detail, when the treaty came to be
signed at Posen on December 11. The Electorate, converted
into a kingdom, and drawn into the circle of the Rhenish
Confederation, was bound to France by a strict offensive and
defensive alliance, and saddled with the obligation of furnishing
a contingent of 20,000 men. For the present war, however, it
was sufficient if 6,000 Saxons only joined hands with the French
in thrashing the Prussians and the Russians. In return for this

134 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

concession the new King should pay a subsidy in cash, which
ultimately came to be fixed at 25,000,000 francs. An article
stipulated for the transfer of the Circle of Cottbus from Prussia
to Saxony, and another for the admission of Catholics to the
same civil and political rights as were enjoyed by the Lutherans
of Saxony. It was stated in the treaty that His Majesty the
Emperor and King made a special condition of this object.
Since the sovereign House of Saxony was Catholic, though
the population was Lutheran, some surprise may be felt at
Napoleon's solicitude. But the French agent at Dresden had
written home not long before that the Lutherans of Saxony
were wont to look to Prussia for protection against their
Catholic Court. His Majesty the Emperor and King, who had
already required the dismissal of two Saxon ministers, may have
desired to weaken the Prussophil element in the Cabinet of
Dresden by opening high office to the Catholics ; nor should we
forget that while the Treaty of Posen was being discussed, he
was fanning the flames of national feeling in Catholic Poland K

If Saxony was saved, reconstituted, aggrandized, it was
because the Elector was known to be an unwilling client of
Prussia, and because his alliance could be sup/emely useful to
France. But there were other clients of the Hohenzollern
House, the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, the Duke of Brunswick, and
the Prince of Orange, who did not fare so well.

William VIII, Landgrave and first Elector of Hesse-Cassel,
was a grandson of George II, a Prussian field-marshal, and
a bigoted foe of revolution, liberalism, and enlightenment. His
admiration for the Prussian army was unbounded. 'It's the
finest corps of officers extant, and they're all nobles, sir,' he said
to the French ambassador. Cherishing two passions only,
soldiers and wealth, he earned the reputation of being at once
the greatest miser and one of the richest princes in Germany.
His soldiers were hired out to foreign powers, and his vast
fortune, acquired partly by these military speculations and
partly by loans issued to his own subjects, was managed with
probity, zeal, and brilliance by a Hebrew banker, the founder
of the Rothschild fortunes. Yet even bad governments breed

1 Corr. xiv. 60, no. 11,427 ; de Clercq, Recueil des Traites, ii. 196 ;
Bonnefons, Un allie de Napoleon, 176-226.

THE FALL OF PRUSSIA 135

special virtues, and the Hessian peasantry felt for their rubicund
and niggardly tyrant emotions of loyalty, gratitude, and respect.

Napoleon had long been uncertain of Hesse-Cassel, and in
the negotiations with England in the spring and summer he
had even contemplated giving Hesse to Prussia, in case it were
necessary to restore Hanover to the British Crown. The
Elector on his side was no enthusiast for Napoleon, but neither
was he willing to be the cat's-paw of Prussia. Still, after many
months of tergiversation he ordered (August) his minister, Baron
Waitz, to draw up a treaty of alliance with the latter power.
But he was only a fair-weather friend, and when he saw that
war was imminent he drew back and refused to sign. It was in
vain that Frederick William offered him the command of the
armies of Westphalia and Hanover, and prayed that Prussian
troops might occupy some posts upon the river Fulda. The
Elector replied that he had determined to observe a strict
neutrality.

Unfortunately the Hessian army was put upon a war footing.
The action was ambiguous. Did the Prussian field-marshal
intend to fall upon the French rear or flank as they were
advancing on Berlin ? Was it his purpose to sell his army to
the highest bidder, or was he merely determined to contest
the right of French and Prussian troops to cross his territory ?
It is no wonder that Napoleon required a clear and instant
statement of the Elector's intentions. He sent word to Cassel
that Hessian neutrality could only be respected upon two
conditions. The army must be demobilized, and not a single
Prussian soldier must tread the soil of the Electorate.

William was probably honest, but the conduct of Hessian
affairs lent itself to misinterpretation. During the critical first
week of October the Elector visited the head quarters of the
Prussian army, and in his absence a Prussian corps led by
General Blucher entered Hesse, and was received in Cassel by
the Electoral Prince attired in the uniform of a Prussian
lieutenant-general. A few days afterwards the Prince sud-
denly fled from the capital, and joined the Prussian army. For
these untoward circumstances the government of Cassel offered
apologies and explanations. The Elector had visited the
Prussians to plead for recognition of Hessian neutrality; the

136 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

entry of Blucher was unauthorized ; the flight of the Prince was
the result of a quarrel with his father. But the time for
apology had gone by — Hesse-Cassel was fatally compromised 1.

On October 25 Napoleon wrote from Potsdam to the Elector
recapitulating his grievances, and announcing the military
occupation of the country. ' My intention is,' he wrote to
Mortier, ' that the House of Hesse-Cassel should cease to reign,
and be effaced from the number of powers V The inhabitants
of Hesse were informed that their religion, their laws, their
customs, their privileges would be respected, and that discipline
would be maintained. 'Have confidence,' proceeded the pro-
clamation, ' in the great sovereign upon whom your lot depends.
You can experience nothing but improvement.'' Two pleni-
potentiaries from Cassel hurried to Berlin with proposals from
William. The Elector would contribute 12,000 men to the
French army, levy an extraordinary contribution, and allow
the French to remain in occupation of Rinteln, Hanau, and
Marburg. The Emperor seemed tempted. He put Bignon,
the young French minister at Cassel, some questions as to the
Hessian troops and the qualities of the Elector, and spoke for
a few minutes as if he were prepared to accept the propositions.
Then suddenly pulling himself up, and with a brusque change
of tone, he said, ' Bah ! Brunswick, Nassau, Cassel, all these
princes are essentially English, they will never be our friends,'
and so saying strode out of the room 3.

Two days later (November 4, 1806), there followed the
famous twenty-seventh bulletin announcing the deposition of
the Electoral family4. 'There is not a House in Germany
which has been so constant an enemy of France. For many
years it sold the blood of its subjects to England to make war
upon us in the two worlds, and it is to this traffic in his troops
that the Prince owes the treasures he has amassed. This sordid
avarice has brought with it the catastrophe of his House, whose
existence on our frontiers is incompatible with the security of
France. The English may still be able to corrupt some

1 Bignon, Histoire de France, v. 435 ff. ; Rambaud, La domination
fran^aise en Allemagne, 101-27.

2 Corr. xiii. 394-8, no. 11,061. 3 Bignon, vi. 35.
4 Corr. xiii. 470-3, no. 11,167.

THE FALL OF PRUSSIA 137

sovereigns with gold ; but the loss of the thrones of those who
receive it will be the infallible consequence of the corruption. . . .
The people of Hesse-Cassel will be happier. Relieved of these
immense military corvees, they will be able to surrender them-
selves quietly to the cultivation of their fields. Relieved of
a portion of their taxes, they will also be governed by generous
and liberal principles, principles which direct the administration
of France and of her allies.' On November 1 the French troops
made their entry into Cassel, and the Elector had but just time
to escape in the novel and uncongenial attire of a civilian.

The fall of the House of Brunswick, decreed more promptly,
aroused general regret in Germany. No German prince was
more liked and respected than the aged Charles William Ferdi-
nand, field-marshal in the Prussian army, who received a mortal
wound on the field of Auerstadt. As Electoral Prince he had
won his spurs in the Seven Years'' War, and his gallantry had
evoked the tribute of an ode from his august uncle Frederick II.
Famous in war, he was also an excellent ruler in times of peace.
A heavy debt bequeathed by an extravagant predecessor was
reduced, if not extinguished, by the wise economies of a Court
remarkable in all Germany for its naturalness and simplicity. At
the same time the poll-tax was abolished, the excise diminished,
and the lot of the peasantry improved by the reduction of tithes
and feudal dues. While Leisewitz was reforming the poor
law, and Campe carrying out educational experiments, the Duke
was feeding his restless energy upon all the details of administra-
tion. ' A prince,' he used to say, ' must not live in his Court, but
in history.' And as he chatted Platt-Deutsch with the country
folk, or drafted the rotund preamble of some beneficent decree,
he felt that the eye of history was upon him. ' He was adored
by his subjects,' says a French administrator who was sent into
the duchy in 1806 ; ' his acts of charity were not reckoned up,
for it would have made an endless repetition. Intelligence,
probity, devotion to the public good were titles to his favour,
and at a time when the Jews were shamefully persecuted in
Germany he placed a merchant named Jacobson on his Council
of State, a devout Jew, but a virtuous man and a philanthropist.'
The strict economy of the government was unfavourable to the
development of the arts and sciences, and the libraries, museums,

138 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

and picture-galleries of the duchy were permitted to starve.
Charles Ferdinand was neither learned nor a patron of letters.
But he had seen Rome with Winkelmann, he corresponded
with Voltaire, and he cherished a personal friendship with
Marmontel. Though his dull English wife preferred her game
of ombre to the music of Spohr or Nardini, the Duke was
a genuine musician, and practised his violin until middle life.
No prince in Europe was a more finished gentleman or a better
linguist. Yet this versatile and accomplished nature was not
devoid of grave defects : a somewhat clouded intelligence, a will
beset by swarms of misgivings, an over-tender care for the great
reputation of his youth. A certain morbid self-consciousness
grew on him with years. While the world was expecting him
to act and to lead, he was anxiously interrogating the looking-
glass of public report *.

It is no wonder that Charles Ferdinand seemed to be the
incarnation of all that was hostile to the Napoleonic system.
He was a Guelph and the son-in-law of an English king ; he
held the baton of a Prussian field-marshal ; his signature had
been unfortunately attached to the manifesto of 1792, which
threatened Paris with ruin if Louis XVI were not restored to
liberty and power. To the French mind the name of Brunswick
had come to be synonymous with all the forces of aristocracy and
reaction, and it was believed that his influence had been largely in-
strumental in provoking the present war. Yet in truth no German
prince was so genuine an admirer of France as the nominal leader
of the monarchical crusade. i He delights greatly in France,1
said Mirabeau in 1786, 'and is exceedingly well acquainted with
it.' Indeed, so notorious was his attachment that early in 1792
he received an invitation from the ministry of Narbonne to take
over the supreme command of the French armies 2.

Borne off the field of Auerstadt mortally wounded and
blinded in both eyes, the venerable commander still hoped for

1 Pockels, Wilhelm Ferdinand, Herzog in Braunschweig ; Massenbach,
Denkwiirdigkeiten ; Heinemann, Die herzogliche Bibliothek zu Wolfenbuttel,
195 ; id., Geschichte von Braunschweig und Hannover, iii. 298 ff. ; Beugnot,
Memoires ; Spohr, Autobiography ; Fitzmaurice, Charles William Ferdinand,
Duke of Brunswick.

2 Mirabeau, Secret History of the Court of Berlin, i. 18-21 ; Revue
historique, i. 157 ff.

THE FALL OF PRUSSIA 139

kindly consideration. ' I know the French,'' he said to the
minister who counselled flight from Brunswick, ' better than you
do. They will respect an old general wounded on the field of
battle. The officers will give a ball, and go to the comedy, and
flirt with the girls. See to their lodgings and that they lack
nothing.' A letter was sent to recommend the duchy to the
clemency of the Emperor.

Brunswick's anticipations were disappointed. Napoleon,
already decided to dethrone the dynasty, broke out into fury
at the receipt of the despatch. ' If I were to have the town of
Brunswick demolished so as not to leave a stone standing, what
would your prince say ? Does not the law of retaliation permit
me to do to Brunswick what he wished to do in my capital ? '
Then after insulting the Duke's strategy in the plains of
Champagne fourteen years before, Napoleon accused him of
having caused the war. * How worthy of blame is this man,
who with a word might have averted disaster, if, like Nestor,
raising his voice in the midst of the councils he had said,
" Inconsiderate youth, be silent ; women, go back to your
spindles, and return to the interior of your households.'" '

This would have been a strange allocution for a Prussian
field-marshal to address to his queen, but Napoleon was not
the finest judge of etiquette. ' Tell General Brunswick,' he said,
* that he will be treated with all the respect due to a Prussian
officer, but I cannot recognize a sovereign in a Prussian general.'
He was even more outspoken to the Chancellor of the Duke of
Weimar. ' You see what I have done to the Duke of Brunswick.
I intend to send these Guelphs back to the Italian marshes from
which they sprang. I mean to crush them and to destroy them
like this hat ' (throwing his hat to the ground), ' so that they
shall no longer be remembered in Germany V

The third of the minor victims was William Frederick of
Orange, brother-in-law to the Prussian King, who having been
turned out of his hereditary dominions in consequence of earlier
French victories, was compensated in 1803 by a small principality
in the heart of Germany consisting of the secularized lands of
Fulda and Corvey, the imperial town of Dortmund, and some
abbeys in Swabia. There was a touch of irony in the fate
1 F. von M tiller, Erinnerungen aus den Kriegszeiten, 62.

140 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

which sent this revolutionary young Lutheran to govern one of
the most bigoted Catholic provinces in the Empire. William
Frederick had been impressed by the methods of Joseph II, and
the little principality hardly knew itself under his stirring rule.
A gay Court enlivened the sleepy capital accustomed to the
ponderous ways of canons. Strange Dutchmen were reported
to hold various offices. The University was turned into a
Lyceum, and contaminated by the presence of Protestant pro-
fessors. There was an end of many monasteries, and the Prince
aimed at depriving the clergy of educational control. A work-
house built for the most part from monastic funds was an insult
to the Roman theory of benevolence, while an ordinance that
Catholics and Protestants might be buried in the same church-
yard was regarded as a gross outrage on religious decency. The
Catholic mind of Fulda was even beginning to effervesce into
seditious sermons and pamphlets when Napoleon removed the
well-meaning but unpopular Prince. Frederick William had
fought under the Prussian flag, he was wounded at Auerstadt
and taken at Erfurt. ' The Prince of Orange will no longer
reign at Fulda,' wrote Napoleon to Mortier on October 17 K

The deposition of the Prince of Orange from a principality
he had only ruled for three years and which thoroughly disliked
him was a step not likely to cause any grave commotion of
opinion in Germany. But it was far otherwise with the
expulsion of the Houses of Hesse-Cassel and Brunswick. No
one indeed was prepared to shed tears over the Elector of
Hesse-Cassel, who had been too timid to fight and too irresolute
to make peace. He had met little more than his deserts. But
his House was ancient and popular, and deep in the German
nature was the instinct of reverence for a family at once old
and princely. And if this was the sentiment with respect to
Hesse-Cassel, the fall of the House of Brunswick aroused a still
keener feeling of pity and resentment. The tragic end of one
of the most venerable and honoured figures in German history,
blinded, wounded, and dying in exile, stirred the sentimental
hearts of his compatriots. The expulsion of the Guelphs meant
the snapping of a great historical tradition, a tradition of

1 Corr. xiii. 366, no. 11,023 ; Darmstaedter, Das Grossherzogthum
Frankfurt, 58 ff.

THE FALL OF PRUSSIA 141

a thousand years, blended with memories of ancient emperors
and many heroic, famous, and factious deeds. That the Houses
of Brunswick and of Cassel should have been punished for their
conduct during this campaign was to be expected. But a mili-
tary execution was one thing, and the subversion of two ancient
dynasties was another. The policy or impolicy of the deed
would have to be judged by the results, by the quality of the
new governments it would be necessary to set up in place of
the old. Would they be German or French, conservative or
progressive, strong or feeble, free or bound, lenient or tyrannous ?
The army bulletins announced to Hessians and Brunswickers
a golden age. But who was to play the part of Astraea ?

Napoleon was now master of Northern Germany from end to
end. But in this conquest he had acquired more than the
immediate material gain and addition to his military prestige ;
he had obtained a weapon against Great Britain. In the
autumn of 1802, when relations were becoming tense between
France and England, Napoleon, dictating instructions to Otto
in London, said that if England insisted on stirring up war on
the continent, she would compel the First Consul to conquer
Europe. Appreciating his own naval weakness, he felt that the
conquest of the island was dubious, perhaps impossible. But
he believed that the wealth of England was fictitious and
destructible, ignoring the profound workings of the English
industrial revolution and the deep-set foundations of her com-
mercial greatness. Like all strong-willed men he was apt to
overrate the power of legislation to counteract natural forces,
and the opinions of the physiocratic school which contended
for free trade were dismissed with contempt as pestilent
6 ideology.' It was his firm conviction that England and
English obstinacy were at the bottom of the coalition and that
the fountain could be dried at its source. The nation of shop-
keepers could be reduced to beggary by persistent exclusion from
the continental market. He could 6 conquer the sea by the land V

1 ( Bonaparte du reste et toute son administration faisaient profession du
plus grand mepris pour le commerce. On lui avait persuade que I 'esprit
commercial etait anti-monarchique ; quil riy avait pas d'honneur dans un
pays commer^ant et qu'il fallait que la France fut seulement militaire et
agricole.' — Pichon, De fetat de la France sous la domination de Napoleon,
158-9.

142 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

On November 81, 1806, a decree dated from Berlin declared
the Britannic Isles in a state of blockade. All commerce and
correspondence with them was forbidden. Every British subject
found in any country occupied by the French troops or those
of their allies was to be made a prisoner of war, and all English
merchandise and property was declared good prize. No ships
coming from England or English colonies were to be received
in any continental port. Letters and packets addressed to an
Englishman or written in England were to be seized by the
post. Great Britain was to be cast out of the community of
civilized nations.

To execute a measure such as this it was necessary for
Napoleon to keep a tight hand upon Germany. ' In this new
position,1 he explained to the Senate, ' we have taken as the
invariable principles of our conduct not to evacuate either
Berlin or Warsaw or the provinces which the force of arms has
thrown into our hands before a general peace is concluded, the
Spanish, Dutch, and French colonies are restored, the founda-
tions of the Ottoman Empire reaffirmed, and the absolute
independence of this vast Empire, the first interest of our
people, irrevocably consecrated.'

While these proud words were being written, the French
army was enduring the horrors of a winter campaign in Poland.
The military power of Russia, though it had been severely
checked at Austerlitz, was still formidable in numbers and
courage, and it was aided by the mud, the cold, and the desola-
tion of the plains of Poland. It was still possible that Austria
might rejoin the fray and throw an army over the Bohemian
defiles upon the right flank of Napoleon. In such an event the
position of the French would indeed be desperate. But Napoleon
was equal to the emergency, and never in his whole career did
he display a greater abundance of diplomatic resource.

Chief Authorities : Bailleu, Preussen und Frankreich ; Oncken, Das
Zeitalter der Revolution des Kaiserreichs und der Befreiungskriege ; Lefebvre,
Histoire des Cabinets de V Europe ; Hausser, Deutsche Geschichte ; Big-non,
Histoire de France ; Rambaud, Domination francaise en Allemagne ; Bonne-
fons, Un allie de Napoleon ; Fitzmaurice, Charles William Ferdinand,
Duke of Brunswick ; Massenbach, Denkwiirdigkeiten ; L. Miiller, Aus
sturmvoller Zeit ; Thiebault, Memoires.

CHAPTEK VIT

TILSIT AND THE SETTLEMENT OF
NORTH GERMANY

c Nous viendrbns a bout de 1' Angleterre ; nous pacifiefons le monde,
et la paix de Tilsit sera, je l'espere, une nouvelle epoque dans les fastes
du monde.' — Napoleon.

A secret despatch from Paris sent to the British government
on June 4, 1805, contains the following passage : * Bonaparte
desires to avenge himself for the opposition which he has
experienced from Russia and to annul her influence in Europe.
The re-establishment of the Kingdom of Poland is his favourite
plan V The French Emperor had long followed the fortunes
of Poland, and saw that this indolent, fiery, and unfortunate
people might be of value in his political combinations. Polish
exiles swarmed in the ante-rooms of the French minister at
Dresden, shed their blood for the French cause in Italy, and
poured the story of their wrongs into the sympathetic ears of
Paris. The heroes of the War of Polish Independence clustered
round Napoleon in Berlin and received his encouragement.
6 Show yourselves worthy of your forefathers,"' he said to a Polish
deputation ; ' they ruled the House of Brandenburg, they were
the masters of Moscow, they took the fortress of Widdin, they
freed Christianity from the yoke of the Turks. In Warsaw
I will openly declare your independence 2.' As the Grand Army,
accompanied by Polish legions and the patriot Dombrowski,
moved into Warsaw, it was received with cries of welcome and
triumphal arches. The hated Prussians, who had taxed brandy
and musical instruments, who had disbanded the Polish army,
allowed Polish officers to starve, filled all the civil offices with
their creatures, lent money at usurious rates to needy landlords,
striven to extend the dominion of the dreary Lutheran religion
and the hateful German tongue — these Prussians had had their

1 F. 0., France, 72. 2 Colin, Vertraute Brief e, ii. 4.

144 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

day. Under a Catholic Emperor the ancient glories of the
Polish kingdom would revive.

If Napoleon had wished to reunite the forces of Austria and
Russia, no more effective plan could have been devised than
the restoration of the Polish kingdom. Both powers had
shared in the partitions and were determined to guard their
spoils. By conceding then to the full measure of Polish aspira-
tions Napoleon would have committed the supreme folly of
making peace with Russia impossible and war with Austria
certain. But every day spent in the Polish mud was pointing
to the necessity of peace. The indecisive and costly battle of
Eylau had dashed the spirits of the Grand Army and diminished
Napoleon's prestige, nor could the continental blockade ever
be made effective until Russia had been brought to terms.

Napoleon therefore, while studious to encourage the warlike
propensities of his valuable allies, declined to commit himself
to any definite assurance which might compromise the future
diplomatic situation. He had never, so he said, recognized the
partitions of Poland ; he declared that he was touched by the
melancholy fate of the country and by the passionate national
sentiment which exhibited itself everywhere. The future, how-
ever, he would only indicate in cloudy and solemn declamation.
6 Will the throne of Poland,' so it was written in the thirty-
sixth bulletin, 'be re-established, and this great nation resume
her existence and her independence ? From the depths of the
tomb will she be born again unto life ? God alone, who holds
the combinations in His hands, is the arbiter of this great
political problem.' The Emperor was modest, for he too would
have something to say to the solution.

At last the decisive victory came (June 1807) at Friedland,
marked by huge Russian losses, and inspiring a quick impulse
of despair. Alexander determined to treat for peace, and the
French and Russian Emperors arranged to liquidate the un-
settled affairs of Europe upon a raft on the Niemen. The
main outlines of the scheme were already fixed in Napoleon's
mind. Alexander would recognize the French conquests and
the French vassal kingdoms, would offer his mediation to
England, and in the event of its being declined would under-
take to join the continental blockade. Napoleon on his side

TILSIT AND NORTH GERMANY 145

would offer his mediation to Turkey, and if this were refused,
would assist his ally in the partition of the Balkan peninsula.
Napoleon would be master of the West, Alexander of the East.

But if the large lines were settled, the details were floating
and uncertain. The first plan submitted upon the French side
provided for a strong unbroken chain of French power from
the Rhine to the Niemen. Napoleon was to keep Hanover,
the Hanseatic towns, the coasts of Mecklenburg and Swedish
Pomerania, in other words the whole of the North German
littoral, while Danzig was to be a free town. Besides this, five
principalities influenced by France and firmly attached to the
French system were to stretch across Northern Germany : first
Berg, swelled by the Westphalian possessions of Prussia ; then
a State formed out of the territories of Hesse, Brunswick, and
Nassau ; and, thirdly, the new Kingdom of Saxony, which had
already, as we have seen, been compelled to join the Rhenish
Confederation. Silesia, the prize of so many efforts, would be
wrested from the Hohenzollerns and given to a French prince ;
while, lastly, a principality would be formed out of the Polish
lands which had been acquired by Prussia since 1772 \

The generosity of Alexander, whose conscience accused him
of desertion, modified some details in this ruthless scheme, and
Silesia was saved for the Hohenzollern House. None the less
the open and secret treaties of Tilsit, which were signed between
France and Russia July 7, 1807, dealt a crushing blow to the
monarchy of Frederick William. On the east and west alike
Prussia was stripped of her most precious possessions. On the
east the Polish provinces were made into the Grand-Duchy of
Warsaw and handed over to the King of Saxony, who was
given a military road across Prussian territory to connect his
new with his old dominions. By article 9 of the treaty
a small strip of Prussian territory east of the Niemen was
transferred to Russia, nominally to establish the ' natural limits,1
but in reality to instil a drop of venom into the relations of
St. Petersburg and Berlin 2. The navigation of the Vistula was

1 Hardenberg, Denkwurdigkeiten, iii. 492 ; Vandal, Napoleon et Alexandre,
i. 88.

2 According to Oginski (Memoires, ii. 377)> Napoleon offered the whole
Duchy of Warsaw to Alexander.

FISHER L

146 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

to be free, an advantage which would be appreciated by the
new Saxon and Polish vassals of the Emperor, but Danzig,
which commanded this great estuary of Polish commerce, though
nominally a free port under the joint protection of Prussia and
Saxony, was garrisoned and continued to be garrisoned by
French troops. If the Duchy of Warsaw was to be composed
of the spoils of Prussia in the east, the Kingdom of Westphalia
was to be created out of the provinces ceded by the King of
Prussia on the left bank of the Elbe, together with other
territories then in possession of Napoleon. Alexander agreed
to recognize the Emperor's youngest brother Jerome as King
of Westphalia, and despite the entreaties of Queen Louise the
important fortress of Magdeburg was added to his dominions.
It was also stipulated that the ports of the Duchy of Oldenburg
and Mecklenburg should continue to be occupied by French
garrisons until the ratifications of a definitive treaty with
England had been exchanged \

When in the course of the negotiations Alexander expressed
a desire that Prussia should have 200,000 souls on the left
bank of the Elbe, Napoleon objected on the ground that the
Prussian State would be interlaced with the Confederation of
the Rhine. * In so great an epoch,' he wrote, * the most im-
portant thing is properly to define relations and limits. One
must remember the evils produced by intermingled States :
witness the passage over the territory of Anspach..' But to
meet the Russian contention an article was inserted into the
secret treaty to the effect that if Hanover were to be united
to the Kingdom of Westphalia, Prussia should receive a com-
pensation amounting to 400,000 souls on the left bank of the
Elbe 2.

A treaty with Prussia was signed on July 9, in which that
unfortunate kingdom notified its acceptance of these terms.
But this was not the end of Prussian humiliations. A large
French army was in occupation of the kingdom, and there was
not a stronghold in Prussia which had escaped the burden of
a French garrison. By a convention signed at Konigsberg
July 12, 1807, it was now arranged that the French troops

1 The treaties of Tilsit are printed in Vandal, i. App. 1.

2 Corr. xv. 384, no. 12,849.

TILSIT AND NORTH GERMANY 147

should be gradually withdrawn, but only when the war con-
tributions demanded by Napoleon had been fully paid up. As
the amount of these contributions had not yet been fixed, the
country was faced with the appalling possibility of an indefinite
military occupation.

Napoleon said long afterwards that probably the greatest
mistake of his life was that he did not dethrone the King of
Prussia when he could so easily have done so. ' After Fried-
land, I should have taken Silesia from Prussia, and abandoned
this province to Saxony. The King of Prussia and the Prus-
sians were too humiliated not to seek vengeance on the first
opportunity. If I had acted thus, if I had given them a free
constitution, and had delivered the peasants from feudal slavery,
the nation would have been content V But if such had been
his action, would he ever have made peace with Alexander, and
would he not almost inevitably have been faced with a com-
bination between Austria and Russia ? After Eylau, peace was
a necessity to Napoleon. The slaughter had been immense, the
army was profoundly discouraged, the conditions under which
warfare was waged were gloomy and dispiriting. All Napoleon's
diplomatic powers were required to avert a fresh catastrophe.
To have dethroned the King of Prussia would have been as
fatal a step as to have made a King of Poland. And though
Napoleon's ambitions were exorbitant, they were still mingled
with a dash of prudence.

In the negotiations of Tilsit the name of Poland was not
even mentioned. But while Napoleon refrained from reviving
the ancient kingdom of the Poles, he did not wish to lose the
support of a gallant and enthusiastic people. The creation of
the Grand-Duchy of Warsaw, a small State of 1,850 square
miles, and numbering something over two million inhabitants,
seemed to be the wise compromise. It ensured order, it sustained
patriotism, it humiliated Prussia, it gave France a sure bastion
on the east. At the same time it was essential to show that
the new grand-duchy was not intended to be the nucleus for
the revival of the ancient kingdom. When Alexander suggested

1 O'Meara, Napoleon at St. Helena, i. 346. Champagny in 1810 advised
the destruction of Prussia on the ground that Prussia was the centre
of anti-French influence in Germany. Senfft, Memoires, 132-3.

l2

148 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

that the Grand-Ducal crown should be offered to Jerome,

Napoleon was tempted, but declined. For a moment it flashed

into his mind that Jerome might be married into the Saxon

House, so as to link Warsaw to Dresden and Cassel. ' Saxony

joined to Westphalia,' he said to Frederick Augustus, 'that

would make a fine kingdom.1 But the objections to the plan

were quickly apparent. It would bring France into dangerous

and unpleasant contact with Russia, and involve the two

nations in all the thousand and one altercations which arise

between contiguous States. Accordingly he assured Alexander

that it was not his intention to extend the sphere of direct

French influence beyond the Rhine. ' The countries situated

between the Niemen and the Elbe will form the barrier which

will separate the great empires, and deaden the pin-pricks which

between nations precede the cannon shots V If the Duchy of

Warsaw was not to be French, it was undoubtedly adroit to

offer it to the King of Saxony. His loyal and lymphatic

rule would calm Russia and please the Poles. Two Saxon

Electors had already sat upon the throne of Poland, and the

Diet had offered the crown in 1792 to Frederick Augustus

himself. The new monarch spoke the Polish language, and

professed the Roman Catholic religion, nor was there any

likelihood that one of the slowest administrators in Germany

would thwart the habits or violate the sentiments of a nation

which, like the Irish, disliked the normal Teutonic views of

progress. ' Under a Saxon, eat, drink, and loosen the belt,1

so ran the Polish proverb of the eighteenth century. But

if Napoleon offered the Grand-Ducal throne to Saxony, he was

careful to reserve the essentials of power for himself. By the

Convention of Dresden, July 22, 1807, the Emperor of the

French was alone permitted to have a resident at Warsaw, and

the Grand-Duke bound himself to support a contingent of

30,000 men who were to be placed under the immediate control

of Marshal Davout. Limited on the military side by the French

marshal, and on the political side by the French resident, the

sovereignty of Frederic Augustus was reduced to a sham. To

render it effective it would have been necessary to appoint

a resident Saxon viceroy in Warsaw, and the Court of Dresden

1 Bonnefons, 221 ; Senfft, 30 ; Corr. xv. 384, no. 12,849.

TILSIT AND NORTH GERMANY 149

suggested the name of Prince Anthony. But since a Saxon
viceroy might have eclipsed the importance of the French
resident, the scheme met with obstacles which Frederick Augustus
was too languid to overcome.

While he was yet at Tilsit, Napoleon summoned some Polish
magnates to help in the drafting of a constitutional statute for
the new duchy, and the work was completed in Dresden. Every
line in this document, which indeed is closely fashioned on the
French model, bears the imprint of Napoleon. The Roman
Catholic religion was declared to be the religion of the State,
but all forms of worship could be fully and publicly exercised.
A brief clause declared that serfdom was unconditionally
abolished, and that all citizens were equal before the law, and
the whole fabric of French jurisprudence and of French judicial
organization was to be transplanted to the ' solitudes of Poland,'
from which the French soldiers looked back so regretfully to
the 'smiling landscapes of France.*' Every two years a Diet,
consisting of a life Senate of 18 and a Chamber of 100 members,
was to meet at Warsaw for the discussion of bills relating to
finance, currency, civil and criminal law. But the old ten-
dencies to anarchy were to be repressed with a strong hand.
The sessions of the Diet were limited to fifteen days, and the
right of speech confined to members of these standing com-
missions and of the King's council. If the King should quarrel
with his assembly, it was specially provided that he could carry
on the finances without it. There was no danger that the
Chamber would be swept by sudden waves of passion, for one-
third retired by rotation every year, and the electoral lists
were carefully made up and revised by government officials.
As for the Senate, it was nominated by the King. Indeed
extreme centralization was the key-note of the constitution in
the Grand-Duchy of Warsaw no less than in France. The
prefects, the sub-prefects, the burgomasters, the municipal coun-
sellors were all to be named by the absentee monarch in
Dresden. A few touches were borrowed from the famous
constitution of 1791, to which the Poles looked back with
affectionate regard, and the presence of bishops in the Senate
recalled the days of King Stanislas. But though both con-
stitutions agreed in strengthening the executive, they differed

150 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

widely in an essential respect, for while the constitution of
1791 granted a large measure of political liberty, but hardly
touched the fabric of social privilege, in the statute of 1807
social equality was decreed, and political liberty practically
extinguished.

That this Napoleonic constitution contained within itself the
seeds of political regeneration for Poland cannot be doubted.
It cured what no Polish ruler would have dared to cure, and
what the Prussian law had not attempted to cure, the cancer
of noble privilege. The deep barriers between class and class,
between the miserable down-trodden peasantry, the outcast
traders of the Ghetto, the indolent and profligate nobility, were
cast down with a powerful hand. The constitution of 1791
had ventured a timid protest against the noble who broke a
contract which he had made with his peasants. The Prussian
law had permitted marriages between nobles and the higher
rank of burgesses in rare and special cases. But Napoleon with
one gesture decreed the freedom of the village, and made
peasant, Jew, and noble the equal citizens of a common State.

The legislation of the Saxon sovereign — le medecin malgre lui,
as he was termed in the witty salons of Warsaw — filled in the
cursory outlines of the Polish Lycurgus. By a decree of
December 21, 1807, the peasant was permitted to quit his
holding, and the free transfer of land facilitated by the aboli-
tion of the distinction between noble and peasant property.
An end was made of the fearful punishments which had hitherto
disgraced the law and the practice of the country, and after
March 18, 1809, no criminal could be racked on the wheel,
flogged in public, or burnt alive. A central committee was
formed in 1810 to draw up a plan for elementary education, to
draft a school code, and to take measures preliminary to the
selection of elementary school-books. Sanitary administration,
the very idea of which was unfamiliar in Poland, was entrusted
to the supervision of a central medical council ; and by the
formation of a commercial college, of a law school at Warsaw,
and of a school of administrative science, an attempt was made
to open the eyes of intelligence among the governing class of
the duchy.

It was not, however, to be expected that reforms so revolu-

TILSIT AND NORTH GERMANY 151

tionary as these would be altogether welcome. The spirit of
Poland was aristocratic, Catholic, and anarchical ; the spirit
of the constitution was egalitarian, secular, and centralized.
Though the higher clergy of Warsaw, who may have been more
intelligent or more servile than their brethren, consecrated the
Civil Code in the cathedral, and listened to an eloquent sermon
upon its merits, yet its introduction was felt to be an humiliation
and a national disaster. The Commons were unable to under-
stand the laification of marriage and the interference with
paternal authority ; the nobles, especially the Lithuanian
nobles, detested the abolition of slavery, and we have it on
the word of Davout, that if the power of the clergy had not
already been broken by the Prussians, there would have been
a Polish edition of the Vendee, directed against some of the
institutions of the Code. It is a sufficient illustration of
the barbarous character of the country that Lubienski, the
Minister of Justice, who was responsible for the introduction
of the French judicial system, was generally suspected of
wishing to make himself master of all the fortunes of the
country by his ascendency over the law courts, nor was the
design considered to be illegitimate. It was the prevalent
opinion that a judge who decided against the interests of his
own family had failed to perform his duty 1.

To acclimatize the principles of a modern civilized State in
an atmosphere so strange and uncongenial would have required
force, time, and good will. But the King of Saxony was only
an occasional visitor, and his Polish ministers were either in-
competent or secretly hostile to the French system. Napoleon
had advised Frederick Augustus not to ' burden his finances with
the Prussian employes who were in the duchy,' or, in other
words, to reserve all State employments to the Poles. So the
great names in the patriotic annals of Polish history were

1 Mazade, Correspondance du Marechal Davout, ii. 74, 230 ; Senfft,
117-8 ; Skarbek, Dzieje Xigstwa Warszawskiego , i. 140, 141, 188, 192-7.
The Moniteur, Aug. 15, 1810, gives a curious account of the consecration
of the Code in the Cathedral of Cracow, when it was extended to the
four Galician departments which had been added after the war of 1809.
After the office the Bishop thundered out the Te Deum and the Salvumfac
Napoleonem, and then proceeded to the consecration of the Code.

152 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

promoted to places of honour, and while Malachowski, head of
the patriotic party in 1791, was made President of the Council,
Joseph Poniatowski, nephew of the last King of Poland, became
Minister of War. But while this measure secured for the
administration a certain air of popularity, it was not without
immediate drawbacks. The Poles were unaccustomed to office
hours, suspicious of Western novelty, and divided by cabals, and
to the punctual French mind the Cabinet at Warsaw presented
a distressing spectacle. Nor was it possible to repress the
effervescence of a people in whom the habit of discussion and
invective had been strengthened by centuries of aristocratic
anarchy. The Polish deputies endured the ennui of their
official parliament for the stipulated fifteen days, but when once
the Marshal had declared this assembly to be dissolved, they
continued their sessions informally and loaded the ministry with
abuse. The debates, lately so arid, now became passionate and
tumultuous, and Poland was gratified by a spectacle which
recalled the good old days of liberty and disorder. Under
these circumstances it is not wonderful if some features in
the Napoleonic programme were altered or obliterated. While
the government of Dresden was far from brave, the Polish
aristocracy was a military asset which might be squandered by
undue harshness or by misplaced philanthropy, so the peasant
continued to perform corvees and to pay dues, and the Hebrew
population, though admitted to civil, was, with some exceptions,
jealously excluded from political rights K

It must be remembered that at the time of its creation
the Grand-Duchy of Warsaw was lying waste and desolate.
Some liberal provisions for the material welfare of the in-
habitants, some compensation for the losses which they had
suffered from the war, would have gone far to commend the
new institutions, and to infuse a spirit of hopefulness as to
the future of the country. This, however, was not the course

1 Bignon, Histoire de France, x. 378 ; Laube, Gesetzsammlung > ii. 143 ff.,
iv. 120 ff. The preamble of the decree of Jan. 29, 1812, freeing- the Jews
of the duchy from the conscription on payment of 700,000 gulden, is
characteristic. It is based on the fact (1) that they are not citizens,
(2) that they are unworthy of the noble profession of arms, (3) that they
cannot be trusted.

TILSIT AND NORTH GERMANY 153

which commended itself to Napoleon. So far from helping
Poland along the road of prosperity, he plunged her deeper and
deeper into the morass of destitution. He reserved domains to
the value of 26,582,000 francs to serve as dotations for his
marshals and generals. The duchy was not only burdened
with the support of a large army, but compelled to repay the
sums which Napoleon had advanced to his Polish allies during
the war. By a treaty concluded at Bayonne in 1809, the King
of Saxony was forced to make a ruinous bargain with the
Emperor, buying for a sum of 20,000,000 francs the right
which France claimed to have inherited from Prussia of re-
covering private debts to the amount of 45,000,000 from the
bankrupt proprietors in the duchy. Nothing was a source of
greater weakness to the Court of Dresden than the attempt to
recover these miserable Prussian debts. It made the Saxon
name odious among the Poles, and produced incessant friction
with the Court of Berlin.

From first to last, then, the Duchy of Warsaw presented
a lamentable spectacle. The burden of an army, French and
Polish, which in the autumn of 1807 amounted to 86,000 men,
the ruin of the export trade in corn owing to the continental
blockade, the remorseless rigour with which first the agents of
the French and then the agents of the Saxon government
pursued the creditors of Prussia, created uneasiness, discord, and
distress. As early as September 1807 rumours were flying that
it was the Emperor's intention to ruin the country and then
abandon it. Though the King of Saxony, with rare generosity,
refused to touch a penny of the Civil List allotted to him as
Grand-Duke, there was a deficit of 21,000,000 in the budget of
1808. Napoleon, indeed, so far yielded to the complaints of the
inhabitants as to take 8,000 Poles into French pay, and to
summon them to France. But the country was never able to
attain financial equilibrium, despite the introduction of novel
and rigorous forms of taxation. In 1810 the expenditure was
almost double the revenue ; in 1811 the duchy was practically
ruined. The pay of the troops in October of that year was
eleven months in arrear ; the soldiers had no boots or winter
trousers ; there was neither coin nor credit, and the contractors
refused to advance.

154 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

'The dissolution of the Polish army,' wrote Poniatowski,
6 seems almost inevitable.' Indeed, since the creation of the
State, the revenues had never reached two-thirds of their
estimated value. ' Nothing,' says de Pradt, who went to
Warsaw in the summer of 1812, 'could exceed the misery of
all classes. The army was unpaid, the officers were in rags ;
the best houses were in ruins, and the greatest lords were
obliged to leave Warsaw from the want of money wherewith
to provide their tables V

'This languishing and almost agonizing body,' as Davout
described the Grand-Duchy of Warsaw in 1808, was kept alive
by the hope that some day or other Napoleon would restore the
ancient Kingdom of Poland in its ample dimensions. For this
end the patriots of Warsaw endured the conscription, and, what
was even worse, the incessant and harassing inquisition of
Davout's spies. Though the miserable and distracted ministers
were liable to have their papers visited by the French police,
their conduct reprimanded by the French resident, and their
subordinates dismissed and banished at the word of the French
general ; though every letter which passed through the post
was read by a spy, and every paragraph which appeared in the
newspapers was submitted to a censor, still the government
laboured on. The one hope of all the patriots was a new war,
and the one school of civic discipline was the army. Indeed,
the megalomania of the Poles, which no misfortune could
quench and no experience could temper, was the sole spiritual
force which united the duchy to France 2.

Even before the formation of the Duchy of Warsaw, Napoleon
had taken steps towards the organization of his conquests in
Western Germany. On October 23, 1806, soon after Jena,
a decree was issued establishing five military governments in the
States which formerly belonged to Prussia, Brunswick, Hanover,
and Orange-Nassau. General Loison was named Governor of
Mark, Minister, Tecklenburg, and Osnabriick ; General Gobert
of Minden and Paderborn. General Bisson was sent to Bruns-
wick, General Thiebault to Fulda, and General Clarke to Erfurt.

1 Mazade, ii. 48, 115 ; Poniatowski to Eckmiihl, Oct. 12, Nov. 22,
Dec. 14, 1811 ; A. F. iv. 1656-7 ; de Pradt, Ambassade a Varsovie.

2 Mazade, ii. 26, 107, 182, 391.

TILSIT AND NORTH GERMANY 155

On the same day Mortier was ordered to occupy Hesse, and
to appoint General Lagrange military governor of the country ;
while, finally, by the end of November Hanover was again in
French hands, and formed a seventh military government under
Marshal Mortier.

It is important to remember the existence of these military
governments, for they formed an essential part of the Napoleonic
system, and some of them lasted for several years, as for instance
Hanover, which remained under military rule till 1810, and
Erfurt, which never obtained anything better. There were
therefore a good many Germans whose impressions of French
rule were mainly derived not from the fully organized studied
principalities, like Westphalia or Berg, but from the unorganized
rudimentary unstudied military governments, like Fulda or
Hanover. Then again some of these rudimentary governments
were afterwards superseded by organized Napoleonic States.
There was, so to speak, a military preface, often not very amiable
in tone, to the new State or to some part of it, but whether
amiable or harsh these military preludes could not be without
influence in the sequel, and thus they deserve a passing word.

To enforce the continental blockade, to spare the French
taxpayer the cost of the war, to cement the loyalty and to
refresh the courage of marshals, generals, or civil servants, to
retain in the power of France provinces which might be used
as objects of compensation in any peace negotiations, such were
the main motives which underlay the military government.
The structure of these governments was extremely simple. The
province would be allowed to retain its old laws and customs,
but it would be governed by a French military officer, held down
by a French military force, and compelled to contribute dotations
to the marshals, contingents to the army, and contributions to
the treasury of France. In each government the general would
be assisted by an inspector or sub-inspector of reviews, whose
duty it was to control the finance, and to submit daily reports
upon the financial situation to the inspector-in-chief, and this
financial expert was assisted by a receiver who was subordinate
to the receiver-general of the contributions of the Grand Army.
Nor was this the sole limitation to the power of the military
proconsul. Apart from the very vigilant supervision of Napoleon

156 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

himself, who systematically encouraged the habit of delation
among the officers, and exhibited a most marked and well-
grounded distrust of French military probity, the soldier-rulers
in Germany were in 1808 placed under the immediate control
of Davout or of Bernadotte. Frequently changed from place
to place, they were unable to acquire any durable influence. But
all the watchfulness of the Emperor could not prevent embezzle-
ment and peculation 1.

Of the military governments established in Germany in 1806,
that of Hesse was perhaps the most respectable. Here the two
chieftains, Lagrange the general, and La Martilliere the in-
tendant, though not above pecuniary temptations, were capable
and on the whole well-conducted2. Lagrange in particular
was conspicuous for his humane temper, his excellent political
judgement, and his soldierly bearing. The province which he
was called upon to govern presented peculiar difficulties. It
regretted its old Elector, it was full of a population trained in
the use of arms, it was covered with wooded hills not ill-suited
to guerilla warfare. The orders of Napoleon were accordingly
stringent, precise, and exasperating. ' Destroy the fortifications
of Marburg from top to bottom. Blow up the fortifications of
Hanau, so that the place is as flat as my hand. Transport to
Mainz all the artillery, all the magazines, all the furniture,
statues, and effects of the palaces of the Court. Disarm the
country strictly. Do not leave a cannon or a gun. Execute
my orders, and arrest and send to France the colonels and
the officers. Send an intendant and a receiver of contri-
butions to collect the revenues of the Prince. For the rest,
you may treat the country gently, but if there is the least
movement anywhere make a terrible example. Let the first
village which stirs be pillaged and burnt ; let the first assem-
blage be dispersed, and its chiefs brought before a military
commission. Let no prince of the House of Hesse, not even
the women, be allowed to stay in the country. Give them their
passports. Dismiss all the servants. Do this with exactitude,
with firmness, but with all the French good nature, and with

1 Some interesting light is thrown on Napoleon's attitude to the army
by Gustave Canton, Napoleon antimilitariste.

2 Brunner, General Lagrange ah Gouverneur in Hessen-Cassel, 30, 31 .

TILSIT AND NORTH GERMANY 157

all the regard due to the sex. ... If there is anything to be
done which can be useful to this population and content it,
such as the suppression of some onerous duty, let me know V

Such then are the main principles. The country must be
disarmed, repressed, pillaged of its art treasures, but compensated
for these evils by some popular reforms, such as do not com-
promise the principles of authority. It is no wonder that the
initial measures of Lagrange produced a revolt. The old
soldiers of Southern Hesse, resenting disarmament, and being
commanded upon pain of death to report themselves in their
barracks, in order to be enrolled in the army of the French
Empire, broke into insurrection. Many of their officers, who
had refused to serve under the French colours, were already
immured in the fortress of Mainz, and it was believed that
a plot was on foot to capture and exile the whole Hessian army.
For a moment it seemed as if the affair would be serious, for the
castle of Marburg fell into the hands of the insurgents, and
small French detachments were put to rout at Hersfeld and
Smalkalden. But the men were ill-led, ill-combined, and half-
hearted, and the effervescence soon subsided as General Barbot's
troops poured in from the south. In spite of the Draconian
orders of Napoleon, Lagrange handled the situation with
judicious clemency. When the revolt first broke out, he issued
proclamations promising a general amnesty to those who would
return to their duty by a certain date. There were no holo-
causts of towns or villages, and hardly more than ten of the
insurgents suffered the extreme penalty of the law. The
clemency of General Barbot at Hersfeld was equally statesman-
like, but it was both stimulated and rewarded by the bribes of
the inhabitants 2.

The province of Fulda — poor, hilly, sylvan, ignorant, without
industry or manufacture — was, as we have seen, allotted to
General Thiebault. His intendant reported great administrative
confusion as a result of the frequent changes under the Orange
regime. There was difficulty in getting information about the
domains ; the forests were not surveyed ; there was no adminis-
tration of princely gardens or fisheries, and here as elsewhere in

1 Corr. xiii. 479-80, no. 11,174.

2 Von M tiller, Aus sturmvoller Zeit.

158 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Germany the French mind was shocked by the dearth of exact
statistics l. The military contribution laid by Napoleon upon
this little district amounted to about a million francs, and as,
besides this, the province had to contribute to the support of
the governor and the government, not to speak of miscellaneous
military requisitions, the scrutiny of the intendant was doubt-
less minute and unsparing. The memoirs of the lively general,
however, show us some of the more pleasant as well as some of
the worst features of the French rule. While the finances
of the country were crippled, the governor realized 212,500
francs in 144 days. He organized concerts, brought a pastry-
cook from Cassel, and ' added to the productions of the country
the finest fish of the Rhine, the pheasants of Bohemia, and the
pates of Strasburg."' A battalion of light infantry was raised
for the Emperor's service, and there was no difficulty in finding
volunteers. Since it was a point of honour with a French
proconsul to denude his province of its choicest treasures, it was
necessary for Thiebault to explore all the possibilities of loot.
The Prince-Bishops of Fulda had not been patrons of the
arts, and even if they had converted their tithes into Rembrandts
or Raphaels, it may be suspected that the French general
would have been an undiscriminating admirer. But in default
of pictures there were three tons of the best Johannesberg
vintage in the cellar, a chamois incarcerated in a wooden cage
and said to be the only specimen of the kind taken alive, and
a hundred and twenty chests containing the library of the defunct
abbey of Weingarten. The mercurial governor settled with
avidity upon these miscellaneous trophies. A travelling-cage
was constructed for the beast, the precious fluid was bottled
under the eyes of the satrap and despatched to the Emperor and
to influential friends, while the rarest manuscripts from the
monastic collection found their way into the Imperial Library
in Paris.

General Thiebault intimated that he was fortunate in
succeeding an unpopular and Protestant prince. The inhabi-
tants of Fulda frequented the levees, appreciated the dinners,
and admired the piety of a Catholic ruler ; the old councils
and the old stiff ceremonial remained as before, nor was there
1 Affaires etrangeres, Memoires et documents : Allemagne, 137.

TILSIT AND NORTH GERMANY 159

any change in the men who carried on the civil business of the
province. But the weight of the contributions was appalling.
A native, after two years1 experience of French rule, wrote the
following words : * All the veins of the province have been
opened, and it will bleed to death V

The second military occupation of Hanover was characterized
by exactions which were equally pitiless. 'The Hanoverian
Estates,' wrote Napoleon to Berthier, October 19, 1806, ' have
been shameless enough to offer me 300,000 francs a month from
the revenues of their country ; they must pay 1,200,000 francs
a month, and 10,000 thalers a week.' The French officials
upon the spot, General Lascalcette and Intendant Belleville,
formerly prefect in the department of Loire Inferieure, were
humane and sympathetic, and did everything which lay within
their power to alleviate the burden of their subjects. Daru,
informed by Belleville, submitted a report to the Emperor
which painted in true and terrible colours the financial ex-
haustion of the country, its revenue diminished from 15,000,000
to 9,000,000, its debt increased during the French occupation by
22,000,000, while the increase on the total expenditure was
estimated at over 67,000,000. The Hanoverian officials would
not help to raise the taxes, and it would be impossible to
replace them by Frenchmen who did not know the locality.
A loan was out of the question, for the Estates had no credit,
and if the Estates and the domainial chambers were dissolved,
the French administrators would be obliged to * seize the threads
of a complicated and little-known administration.' Daru con-
sequently advised that the imperial demands should be abated,
and that 600,000 francs a month should be exacted in money,
besides contributions in kind. Perhaps also an extraordinary
revenue of 2,000,000 might be raised by the sale of forest
timber. But even these demands were far too exorbitant, and
met with the strongest protests from the standing commission
of the Hanoverian Estates. The payment of 600,000 francs
could at most be made for five months, and the sale of forest
timber would destroy the capital resources of the country. As it
was, the country was being plundered by six different French offi-
cials. There was Marshal Brune in the Hanse towns. Recruits
1 Darmstaedter, Das Grossherzogtum Frankfurt, 66-7.

160 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

were marching through Hanover to join Marshal Mortier in
Mecklenburg and Pomerania. At Hameln, General Treilhard
required the construction of a hospital for 12,000 men, and
the support of 6,000 invalids. From Erfurt Lemarquant was
making requisitions for the building of magazines, not to
speak of the cost involved by the new military roads. Since
the French troops had entered the country, no less than
304,438 thalers had been expended on their service.

The remonstrances of the Hanoverians were by this time
familiar to Napoleon, and he had a short way of dealing with
them. ' I have ordered,' he wrote, March 23, 1807, ' that the
States of Hanover should pay so much a week. They must
pay it. . . . Make the States understand that if they do not pay
one day or other, we shall take extraordinary measures to
compel them V In April two Hanoverian ministers were expelled
the country, but still there was no money. In September the
Estates were dissolved, and five of the most prominent members
were imprisoned. Yet, despite the coup o?etat, the old diffi-
culties still persisted. Two members of the new government
commissions formed by General Lascalcette, Meding and Von
Miinchhausen, were pronounced opponents of France, and offered
a passive resistance to French proposals.

Yet, exorbitant as those proposals were, they were based
upon principles of rational finance. Belleville declined to
recognize the old provincial fiscal distinctions, and swept away
all the aristocratic fiscal privileges. For the first time in the
history of the Electorate a single tax was levied over its whole
surface ; for the first time the Hanoverian nobility were dosed
with the bitter but salutary medicine of progressive imposts.
But more was demanded than could ever be forthcoming from
the normal methods of taxation, and the intendant was com-
pelled to resort to violent measures. On December 25, 1807,
Belleville demanded a forced loan of 10,000,000 from the
wealthy. The loan was to be paid within three terms of
twenty days. If the first third was not paid before the
expiration of the first term, at least five soldiers and one
non-commissioned officer would be quartered in the house of
each delinquent. If within twenty days these measures were

1 Corr. xiv. 504, no. 12,131.

TILSIT AND NORTH GERMANY 161

not effective the proprietor was to be driven from his house,
and his movables and if necessary his immovables sold by auction.
Yet harsh measures cannot force money out of empty pockets,
and by September 8, 1808, only 3,575,000 francs had been paid
in to the French receiver, despite the fact that a supplementary
loan had been raised from the poor. It was not half the
original sum demanded.

It is unnecessary to pursue the details of Hanoverian fiscal
history during the French occupation. Two observations may,
however, be made. In Hanover, as in all the other ' reserved '
provinces in Germany, the domains were separated from the
other branches of revenue, and released from all charges save
those connected with their own administration. The obvious
source therefore from which the Hanoverian deficit could be
diminished was cut off and diverted for the benefit either of the
marshals and generals who had received dotations, or else for
the benefit of the French exchequer. In the second place, the
extreme difficulty which Hanover experienced in meeting the
fiscal demands of the Emperor, led to the exercise of a strict
control over the general expenditure on the part of the French
intendant. He was obliged to insist that no money should be
expended upon any purpose, central or local, without his leave,
and eventually he went so far as to allocate a monthly sum of
500 thalers for the current expenses of government. The
repercussion of the French occupation was thus felt in every
sphere of life. The payments to magistrates and officials were
curtailed ; the members of the Estates no longer received their
salaries ; arrears of interest on the debt and arrears of pensions
due to Hanoverian officers were simply repudiated — in a word,
the whole civil service of the country was starved. By the end
of 1809, the French occupation had probably cost the electorate
between 40,000,000 and 50,000,000 francs, and Belleville repre-
sented that the French army alone had swallowed up four times
the amount of the gross income of the country.

Meanwhile, Napoleon's control of Germany was complete.
Austerlitz had confirmed his supremacy in the south, Jena
had given him the command of the north, Tilsit secured him
from danger in the east. Prussia lay crushed and muti-
lated, deprived of her fairest provinces, occupied by a foreign

FISHER M

162 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

army, condemned to pay a huge contribution, and to witness
the downfall of her three client dynasties, Brunswick, Hesse-
Cassel, and Orange-Nassau. The Houses of Bavaria, Wiirtem-
berg, and Baden were now united to the family of Bonaparte
by ties of marriage. Saxony and the smaller Saxon princes
had joined the Confederation of the Rhine, and French troops
watched the southern coast of the Baltic from the Trave to
the Vistula. Of the conquered tracts some were being organ-
ized as vassal States, while others were placed under military
government until their destiny should finally be determined.
But in all, half the revenue from the domains was reserved
for Napoleon.

' I saw the Emperor, that world-soul, ride through the city
to reconnoitre,' wrote Hegel during the campaign of 1806, and
many other fine Teutonic intellects shared the fascination. To
some honest minds it seemed as if a new era was opening for
Germany, as if the work of destruction was now ended, and the
ground cleared for an imposing piece of political architecture.
The pedants were at work upon the constitutional law of the
Rheinbund, and prophesied brilliant things for that institution,
while to others it seemed as if the most valuable lessons in
political practice and philosophy would be derived from a study
of the separate Napoleonic States. How far these prognostica-
tions were justified, and how far they were deceived, will be the
theme of the remaining portion of this volume. In the history
of political experiments there should be few passages more
instructive.

Chief Authorities : Vandal, Napoleon et Alexandre I ; Bignorij Histoire
de France ; Bonnefons, Un allie de Napoleon ; Mazade, Correspondance de
Davout ; Senfft, Memoires ; Potocka^ Memoires ; Bulletin des Lois du
Grand-duche de Varsovie ; Gesetzsammlung des vormaligen Herzogthums
Warschau, aus dem Polnischen ubersetzt von S. G. Laube ; Lublinier, Corre-
spondence entre le Code Civil du royaume de Pologne et le Code Civil francais ;
F. Muller, Aus sturmvoller Zeit ; Thiebault, Memoires ; Thimme, Die
inneren Zustdnde des Kurfurstenthums Hannover unter der franzosisch-
westphiilischen Herrschaft.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CONSTITUTION AND THE CONCORDAT

c Le temps des institutions n'est pas encore venu. Elles suivront la
paix generale.' — Napoleon.

The disappearance of the Holy Roman Empire and the
formation of a new political federation excited in Germany the
most lively regrets and expectations. It was now remembered
that an institution, which had long been the butt of ridicule,
had performed a useful function as the protector of the weak
against the strong, and as a safeguard of traditional rights
against the despotism of the princes. The knights and the
mediatized nobles had lost their historic champion, and even
those whose material interests were unaffected could not regard
the annihilation of an institution so old, so picturesque, so
interwoven with the whole course of German history, without
a pang of regret. Even in East Frisia the schoolmaster would
tell the villagers that a great calamity had befallen them \

The task of drawing up a fundamental statute for the new
Confederation had been assigned to Dalberg, and no commission
could have been better calculated to enlist the support and
tickle the vanity of that impetuous and incompetent politician.
Perhaps also the selection shows that the proposed constitution
for the Rhenish Confederacy was not very seriously regarded by
Napoleon. Dalberg attacked the problem with characteristic
zeal, and on August 5, 1806, a plan was on its way to Paris.
The Diet of the Confederacy was to be convoked by the French
Emperor and by the French Emperor only, and its session was
to be limited to a period of fifteen days. His Imperial Majesty
was to initiate, to veto, to sanction the laws, and to name the
presidents of two permanent commissions constituted respec-
tively for the preservation of public peace and the preparation
of legislative measures. The language of the debates was to be

1 Eilers, Meine Wanderung durclis Leben, i. 94.
m2

164 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

German, and the officials of the Diet were to be German also.
Further than this the scheme did not go l.

The question of the Diet was far too delicate to be solved in
so trenchant a manner. If Dalberg's scheme had been carried
out, the Confederacy, instead of being a loose military union,
would have taken upon itself the legislative and police functions
of a State. Dalberg's lurking desire was in fact that the
Rhenish Confederation should be a new edition of the ancient
Empire, under French instead of under Austrian hegemony.
Nor was he unwilling to see the imperial power fortified at the
expense of the independence of the princes, for the princes had
not only devoured the patrimony of the ecclesiastics, of the
small nobles, of the knights — the classes in which he was
specially interested — but their ecclesiastical policy was dia-
metrically opposed to his own. While it was Dalberg's ambi-
tion that a single concordat should be made between the Pope
on the one hand and himself on the other, as head and
representative of the Catholic Church in Germany, the princes
were anxious to make separate arrangements for their own
several territories. It was natural, then, that the Arch-chancellor
should desire to restrain and abridge their pretensions.

Such, however, was not the view of the French government.
The essence of the compact with the German princes was that
their foreign and military policy should be guided by Napoleon,
while they should be given complete mastery of their own
dominions, and at a time when France was drifting into war with
Prussia it was specially important to regard the susceptibilities
of the German confederates. Talleyrand accordingly drew up a
clear statement of the position of his government, to emphasize
the fact that the Emperor was protector, not sovereign, of
the Confederation, and that every member of the league was
endowed with the attributes of independence and sovereignty.
' The Diet in which they meet to discuss their common interests
cannot,' he wrote, 'be compared to the legislative power of
a separate State, or to the ancient Diet of the German Empire.
It should, properly speaking, be nothing but a kind of political
congress, where equals with common interests discuss those

1 Projet (Tun statutfondamental, Aug. 4, 1806 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr.
Pol : Allemagne, 732.

THE CONSTITUTION AND THE CONCORDAT 165

interests amicably, and agree upon measures for the common
utility. Since the discussions which the confederates may have
with their subjects cannot be brought before a foreign tribunal,
the Confederation should not have courts. It is a court itself,
but a court of conciliation, that is to say, it can only declare
which of two parties is in the right V

All schemes, then, for a further organization of a Confederate
legislature fell to the ground. ' That man,' said Napoleon to
Metternich, in 1807, as Dalberg left the room, ■ is a numskull.
He keeps tormenting me to reconstitute what he calls " la patrie
allemande" He wants to have his Ratisbon, his imperial
Chamber, with all its traditions of the old German Empire.
He has just been trying to talk this nonsense to me, but I cut
him short. "Monsieur TAbbe," I said, "I will tell you my
secret. The small people in Germany want to be protected
against the big : the big want to govern according to their
fancy ; now as I only want a federation of men and of money,
and as it is the big people and not the small people who can
give me the one and the other, I leave the former in peace, and
the latter must get on as best they can 2." ' Three years later he
was still of the same opinion. ' You know my principles with
relation to Germany,' he wrote to Champagny. ' I attach
no importance to the Confederation as a confederation, but
I attach an importance to each prince separately, and I wish
that all should enjoy their independence V So the Diet of
Frankfort never met, Bavaria and Wurtemberg insisting that
before it could even be summoned, the several members of the
Confederation must accept the fundamental statutes 4. Indeed,
in view of the temper of Germany, such a gathering might have
had its perils even as early as 1806 5.

1 Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Allemagne, 732 ; Archives nationales,
A. F. iv. 1706 b. It does not appear that this memoir was trans-
mitted to Dalberg, who was still permitted to enjoy the delights of
his constitutional cloud-castles. Thus on Sept. 26, 1807, he submits an
c esquisse aVun statut fondamental pour la Confederation Rhenane.' Affaires
etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Allemagne, 733.

2 Metternich, Memoires, i. 58-9. 3 Corr. xx. 269, no. 16,339.

4 -Bacher to Talleyrand, Oct. 17, 1806 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. :
Allemagne, 732 ; ibid., Baviere, 182.

5 Otto to Talleyrand, Nov. 10, 1806 : ( The diplomatic agents of the

166 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Just as there was to be no constitution, so too there was
destined to be no concordat for the Rheinbund.

The great bulwark of Roman Catholicism in Germany, 'the
Catholic Spain,' as it has been called, was then, as it is now,
Bavaria. Ever since the days when the first Protestant martyrs
suffered in the Falcon Tower in Munich, the Bavarians had
been the militant force of the papal cause in Germany. From
them sprang the Catholic League and the counter-reformation,
and it was the alliance of their princes with the Hapsburgs
which once and for ever rolled back the Lutheran tide, and
settled the question whether Germany was to be one or divided
in creed. The devotion of the Wittelsbachs to the Pope
brought many material advantages to their House, help against
the powerful and ' immediate ' Bishops of Bavaria, the Electoral
rank, and last but not least the splendid appanage of Cologne,
which for hard upon two hundred years was continuously ruled
by Bavarian princes. In return they kept their country untainted
by heresy and unillumined by knowledge, standing aside from
the rest of Germany in a curious kind of somnolent isolation, at
once infantile and patriotic. For a brief period during the
reign of Maximilian III an irregular shaft of light pierced the
darkness, and the secret and fashionable society of the Illuminati
made war against the obscurantists of the Church. But this
movement, full of unripe fancies, and accompanied by much
that was silly and extravagant, perished abruptly under the
persecutions of the succeeding ruler, Carl Theodor, and it was
not until the accession of Maximilian Joseph of Zweibriick, in
1799, that a new era was really begun. Then all the old
traditions of Bavaria were suddenly reversed. Not only was
there a new ruling dynasty from the west — an Elector who had
been a French officer, an Electress who was a heretic — but the
country itself had been changed by the gifts of Napoleon. It
was no longer the old Catholic peasant electorate, but a
monarchy enriched by a constellation of ancient cities, and

allied Courts take no joy in Jena. A foreigner would say that they
belonged to the conquered party. Can one not conclude that the
union which has just been established will only last till an occasion
offers for breaking it off?' — Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Baviere, 182 ;
and cf. Miiller, Erinnerungen, 182.

THE CONSTITUTION AND THE CONCORDAT 167

holding sway over 1,200,000 Protestant subjects. The new
King was neither able nor industrious, but he had the good
sense to see that the old ways were no longer possible, and
he was well served by the ruthless and cynical intelligence of
Montgelas. Through the energies of that minister the State
was modernized in all its branches. The Protestants received
toleration, the monasteries were abolished, and education was
transferred to lay control l,

But in a Catholic country, however modern, the Papacy can
never be a negligible force, and the ministry of Montgelas
wished to negotiate with the Curia whose spirit and traditions
it had so rudely offended. For a whole century the Court of
Munich had been striving to obtain a territorial Church, or in
other words, to free itself from the metropolitan authority of
the See of Mainz. But to win such an object a concordat with
the Papacy was necessary ; nor was it less essential, if the
revolution of the last two years was to be commended to the
minds of the ignorant, the scrupulous, and the devout.

There seemed to be only one way of overcoming the natural
reluctance of Rome to sanction changes such as these. In 1802
the Pope had been forced by Napoleon to accept the French
Revolution, and a concordat was signed in Paris for the settle-
ment of the Catholic Church in France. Why should not
a word from Bonaparte expedite the ecclesiastical affairs of
Bavaria also ? Accordingly the Elector applied for the
mediation of the First Consul, and a scheme was submitted
by the Court of Munich which Talleyrand thought to be
( reasonable (July 1802). Suggestions from a possible ally were
always welcome, and Bonaparte wrote to the Pope to ask what
the Curia was prepared to do for the Prince of Bavaria 2.

The Curia was not prepared to do anything. The more
she had been forced to grant to France, the less she was
inclined to grant to Germany. A papal Brief was issued on
February 12, 1803, condemning the reforms of Montgelas, one
of which, the granting of civil rights to non-Catholics, was

1 Treitschke, Deutsche Geschichte, ii. 323 ff. ; Sicherer, Staat und Kirche
in Bayern ; Otto Meyer, Zur Geschichte der romisch-deutschen Frage ;
d'Haussonville, L'Eglise romaine et le Premier Empire.

2 Corr. viii. 7, no. 6,273.

168 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

specially abhorrent to the Roman tradition. To Bonaparte
came a long and obscure reply, from which the First Consul
was able to gather that his intervention was distasteful, and
indeed on June 4, 1803, the Curia formally rejected the French
mediation.

Meanwhile, on February 28, the Diet had issued the famous
decree which ratified the territorial changes consequent upon
the French conquest of the left bank of the Rhine. A new
series of ecclesiastical problems now awaited solution. A fresh
division of dioceses and provinces, a competent endowment for
dispossessed bishops, a reorganization of such capitular bodies
as had been affected by the secularization, these and other
questions required prompt treatment. The terms of the decree
clearly indicated that arrangements were to be made by the
Curia in concert with the Diet, and as the Diet was supposed
to be under Austrian influence the Pope determined to treat
with it. In other words, there were to be no separate con-
cordats, but one concordat for the whole Reich, and from
February 6 to March 21, 1804, negotiations were carried on at
Ratisbon to effect this object.

To the Arch-chancellor, who aspired to be Patriarch of
Germany, nothing could be more distasteful than the policy
of territorial concordats. To Bavaria nothing could be more
odious than the claims of the Arch-chancellor. The Court of
Munich again appealed to the First Consul, and for a second
time Bonaparte intervened. As he was uncertain of the temper
of the Diet, but anxious to conciliate Bavaria, he instructed
his ambassador at Rome to support the Bavarian claims, and
Cardinal Fesch orated upon the dangers of a possible Austrian
Arch- chancellor. Both negotiations ended in failure. The
Pope asked too much at Ratisbon, the Bavarians asked too
much in Rome. In 1804, when Pius came to Paris to crown
the Emperor, the question was still undecided and the Pope
declined to discuss it. The Curia was adroit enough to under-
stand that everything was to be gained by delay.

The quarrel of Napoleon with the Pope over Ancona in 1805,
the Treaty of Pressburg which acknowledged the sovereignty
of Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden, and the abolition of the
Holy Roman Empire caused a change in the attitude of Rome.

THE CONSTITUTION AND THE CONCORDAT 169

If in 1804 the Pope was more willing to negotiate with the
Arch-chancellor than with the princes, in 1806 the situation
was reversed. In 1804 the Arch-chancellor was still the repre-
sentative of an ancient and Catholic Empire, while the most
important of the Catholic princes was supported by Napoleon
in a policy destructive of ignorance, superstition, and intoler-
ance. In 1806 the ancient Empire had been swept away, and
it was only too probable that the Prince-Primate would be
encouraged by the Protector of the Rhenish Confederation to
claim independence for the German Church. The sensitive
tentacles of papal diplomacy closed round the very objects
which had previously been most repulsive to it, and separate
negotiations were entered into with the Courts of Munich,
Stuttgart, and Carlsruhe.

Immediately after the conclusion of the Peace of Tilsit
Napoleon determined to take up the affairs of the Church, and
forwarded through Eugene (July 22, 1807) a sharp and menacing
letter to the Pope. He spoke of the immense services which
he, the Emperor, had rendered to religion in France, in Italy,
in Germany, in Poland, in Saxony. There was not a corner
of the world in which the true faith had not been promoted
by the Emperor and impeded by the Pope. He threatened that
if the Pope tried to denounce him to the world, he would
separate his people from all communication with Rome and
'establish a police.1 Did the Pope take him for Louis le
Debonnaire ? But indeed the papal neglect of religion was of
no recent date. Had not the Court of Rome, despite his
solicitations, allowed the Church of Germany to perish and to
remain in a dreadful anarchy ? He was ready to unite the
Gallican, the Italian, the German, and the Polish Churches
in a council to arrange matters without the Pope and to
secure his people from the priests of Rome. He would
always be the Charlemagne, never the Louis le Debonnaire of
the Church1.

This curious fulmination was soon afterwards followed by

a letter from Champagny, then Foreign Minister, to Cardinal

Caprara. After representing that the Emperor was clothed

with * a priesthood which imposes on him the duty of defending

1 Corr. xv. 441 ff., no. 12,942.

170 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

the Catholics of the Oder, the Vistula, and the Rhine, against
the influence of Protestants and Lutherans,' he proceeded to
press the conclusion of the German concordat. It must be
dealt with at once and under the Emperor's ' own eyes,' on pain
of an appeal to a General Council. Caprara, Bayane, and the
Nuntio della Genga were named as the negotiators acceptable
to Napoleon \

It would be inconceivable to imagine a demand couched in
more peremptory language, and Dalberg, summoned by Napoleon
himself to conduct the negotiations on the German side, came
to Paris with lively hopes. Professing to represent the views
now of all, and now of a great number of German bishops, he
drafted some vague and magnificent aspirations in a petition
to the Emperor. After demanding civil and political rights
for all Catholics, a guarantee for existing Catholic property,
an adequate endowment for cathedrals, seminaries, and chapters
in the secularized States, and a settlement of diocesan limits
and revenues, he went on to ask that the Primate of the German
Church, the successor of St. Boniface, should exercise 'the
functions of that dignity ' over the whole of Germany, and that
his mandates should be executed everywhere as soon as they
had obtained the assent of the Diet and the approbation of the
Protector 2. But again the Papacy, its will steeled by a great
ideal, its wits quickened by a long tradition of diplomacy,
eluded the pressure of its foes. Caprara astutely suggested
that the sovereigns of the Confederation who had Catholic
subjects should be invited to send plenipotentiaries to the
conference, and under that single drop of corrosive acid all the
Arch-chancellor's hopes withered away. Dalberg's plan of
a German patriarchate under Napoleonic control would be as
abhorrent to the German princes as it was to the Curia. To
the Papacy the pretensions of the German metropolitan had
long been insufferable, and now they were presented in a form
even more concentrated and dangerous than was the Ems
punctation. But in truth there were many other causes of
bitterness which divided the Pope from the Emperor, and when

1 Champagny to Caprara : d'Haussonville, ii. 418 ff.

2 Projets pour les moyens d'obtenir un Concordat pour les Mats qui composent
la Confederation Rhenane.

THE CONSTITUTION AND THE CONCORDAT 171

on December % 1808, Pius recalled his envoys, the negotiations
for the German concordat were at an end.

Napoleon does not appear to have followed these operations
with interest, and granted Dalberg but one short and formal
interview. In France the concordat was a necessity, a primary
condition of social peace and a valuable instrument of empire.
But in Germany Napoleon had nothing to gain by thwarting
the territorial policy of the princes. There were no loose un-
registered spiritual forces to be curbed, there was no revolution-
ary land settlement to be sanctioned. Josephism triumphed
throughout the land. 'The German princes,' wrote Dalberg
to Napoleon \ ' insist upon State commissioners accompanying
the bishops on their visitations, and no bishop can issue an
order without obtaining the consent of his sovereign. When
your Majesty wishes that a political event should be mentioned
in the services of the Church, the order is given to the bishops.
The German princes address their orders generally to the cures,
and often prescribe the terms of the prayers.' This situation
of affairs was altogether satisfactory to the Protector of the
Rhenish Confederation. He had no mind to enter the arena
as an episcopal gladiator against the laymen of Germany ; he
had taken the measure of Dalberg. There were things more
pressing than German dioceses. He was content to insist that
all powers joining his Confederation should admit Catholics to
civil and political rights, and when he suspected that Catholics
were not receiving fair treatment he came down with a heavy
hand. It was convenient to figure as the Protector of the true
faith in Germany, and over and over again in his anti-papal
manifestoes we learn that the Church is perishing, that sees
are unfilled, that the Pope is betraying Germany to the
Protestants 2. Yet when at last, in 1813, a new concordat was
made with the Pope, there was no succour afforded to the
' perishing Church.' And so the grand German concordat was
permitted to slide into oblivion, chimaera bombinans in vacuo,
joining, somewhere in the regions of the inane, the fundamental

1 Note on the ecclesiastical affairs of Germany, Aug. 13, 1807 : Affaires
etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Allemagne, 733.

2 Corr. xv. 506, 561 ; xix. 15 ; xx. 112 ; xxi. 352, 481-3 ; xxii. Ill,
258.

172 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

statute which was never passed, and the Diet which was never
summoned, and the courts of the Confederation which were
never created l. Yet solemn and learned treatises were com-
posed upon the constitutional law of the Rheinbund2.

1 An elaborate plan for the judicial organization of the Confederacy
was submitted by Champagny to Napoleon, Feb. 28, 1808 : A. F. iv.
1706 b ; and cf. Pelet, Memoires, i. 83-4.

2 e. g. Kluber, Staatsrecht des Rheinbundes, Tubingen, 1808, hardly
to be equalled for conscientious futility.

CHAPTER IX

THE FOUNDATION OF THE GRAND-DUCHY

OF BERG

' Cette administration doit etre l'ecole normale des autres Etats de la
Confederation du Rhin ; c'est quelque chose que cela.' — Napoleon.

Among the reputations of the Grand Army there was none
brighter than that of Joachim Murat. The sixth son of a small
yeoman innkeeper, Murat was born on March 25, 1767, at La
Bastide-Fontaniere, near Quercy. Serving by turns in the fields
or in his father's inn-yard, he learnt to ride horses, to tend them,
and to break them in. His intelligence was active and supple,
and, being destined by his parents for the Church, he rapidly
acquired the elements of an education at the College of Cahors
and the Seminary of Toulouse. His early letters show him to
have possessed a rare power of facile and passionate expression,
such as only proceeds from sensitive temperaments, and the
letters written in later life to his little daughter unfold a tender
and charming trait in his nature. He was tall and limber, with
masses of silky black hair, an aquiline nose, blue eyes, the sun-
burnt skin of the southerner, an open mouth with full lips, and
a frame of iron. It was clear that he would never do for the
Church, and the passage of a cavalry regiment through Toulouse
decided his fate. He enlisted, and in the turmoil of the Re-
volution he rose to the front, never doubting but that he was
destined for great things. ■ At my age,' he wrote in 1792, ' and
with my courage and military talents I can go still further.
God grant that I may not be frustrated.' At Vendemiaire the
prayer was answered, and Murat attracted the favourable notice
of Bonaparte. Henceforth his reputation was made. Aide de
camp to Bonaparte in Italy, he demonstrated his powers as
a leader of horse more than once, at Roveredo, at Bassano, at
Rivoli. On the march to Cairo he commanded the rearguard ;
at Salahieh he charged at the head of the Third Dragoons ; in
the Syrian campaign at the battle of Aboukir he displayed

174 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

intelligence, ingenuity, and courage. Hitherto he had not by
any means been the servile adherent of Bonaparte. He was
quarrelsome, he was ambitious, he looked rather to Barras than
to Bonaparte for advancement. But Egypt made up his mind,
and on the nineteenth of Brumaire he manifested his devotion.
Then, as a reward for his loyalty, he aspired to the hand of
Caroline, the beautiful sister of the First Consul. ' I had other
views,' said Bonaparte ; ' who knows the alliance I could have
procured for Caroline ? ' But Josephine was on the side of the
suitor, and at every objection the First Consul was reminded of
Aboukir and Brumaire. At last the suppliants gained their
will, and on January 18, 1800, the marriage-contract was signed.
Murat, however, was not one of those men whose ambitions are
quenched by matrimonial success. The Marengo campaign
brought him fresh distinction and a sword of honour, and every
day of good fortune inflated his insolence and aspirations. He
thrashed an octroi official who demanded payment of him at the
barrier of Paris ; he declined indignantly the command of the
army of the West ; and, technically subordinated to Brune, he
refused to receive orders from any one save the First Consul.
Circumstances were favourable to his ambitions and his greed.
The Neapolitans unwisely attacked Siena, and Murat, seizing
a chance of independent action, moved into Tuscany. Foiled of
a profitable campaign against Naples by the intervention of the
First Consul, the greedy Gascon enriched himself at the expense
of the Pope. Marching his army to Foligno in the heart of the
Papal States, he demanded and obtained a hundred thousand
crowns as the price of his retirement. The contract signed, the
French general honoured His Holiness with a visit, and with six
of his officers was entertained at the expense of the Apostolic
Chamber in the Palazzo Sciarra. ' My visit,' he wrote, describing
an audience with the Pope, 'has given him consideration and
aplomb. He needed it.' It may be added that it was productive
of more substantial benefits to the visitor, among which may be
numbered a valuable Raphael. A Neapolitan campaign might be
fruitful in similar gratifications, but the First Consul would not
hear of it. Nevertheless the spoils of Italy sufficed to purchase
one of the finest hotels in Paris, a country house, and an estate,
at a total cost of twelve hundred thousand francs.

To face page 174

Osr^ishire t Stanford ire/.

Ox/ore/.

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF BERG 175

When in 1802 an Italian republic was founded, with Count
Melzi, a wealthy and honourable Milanese, as vice-president and
acting governor, Murat returned to Italy to command the French
army of occupation. His conduct was abominable, and his rapacity
the common talk. He entered into an open struggle with Melzi,
was corruptly interested in a company of contractors, and did
everything in his power to bring the administration into contempt
in order that the republic might be annexed to France. It speaks
well for Bonaparte that he consistently supported Melzi in this
irritating contest. Nevertheless, when Murat returned to France
in August 1803, he only found fresh honours awaiting him. He
became a deputy to the Legislature, was made Governor of Paris,
and received a marshal's baton and a hundred thousand francs.
Later he was created Grand Admiral, Prince of the Empire, and
Senator. His income was enormous, his cook the best in Paris,
his Court at the Hotel Thellusson almost rivalled the Tuileries.
But yet neither he nor Caroline were satisfied. They engaged in
a campaign of calumny against Louis and Hortense, whose son
had been named to succeed the Emperor, and were in covert
opposition to Bonaparte. While Eugene was made Viceroy of
Italy; while Joseph, a dull man without military talent, was sent
to rule Naples, and Elise became Princess of Lucca and Piombino,
Murat and Caroline were left in Paris, opulent but craving.
Yet in the war of 1805 it was Murat's ruse which seized the
bridge of Vienna, Murat who won the fight at Hollabrunn, and
Murat again who helped to storm the plateau of Pratzen which
was the key to Austerlitz. As he rode into action, his long
black hair waving in the wind, his great white plumes in a clasp
of brilliants, his body clad in a light blue velvet tunic em-
broidered with gold, a sash of light blue silk fringed with gold
at the waist, his legs adorned with white breeches and the big
yellow boots of the Thirty Years' War, he must have looked
like some glorified circus-rider. But nevertheless, as the husband
of Caroline and the first leader of horse in the French Empire,
he aspired to be the ruler of a State, to frame laws, and to
conduct an administration \

1 Correspondance de Murat, ed. Lumbroso ; Masson, Napoleon et sa
famille, ii. 38-54, 190, 204 ; iii. 47, 53, 269-93 ; Francesco Melzi d'Eril,
Memorie, documenti e lettere, ed. G. Melzo ; de Sackow, Memoires.

176 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

The campaign of Austerlitz brought into Napoleon's possession
two small territories on the Lower Rhine — the Duchy of Cleves
and the Duchy of Berg. The first had been the property of
Prussia ; the second was ceded by Bavaria in exchange for the
Margraviate of Anspach, which Napoleon had wrung from the
Court of Berlin. In both cases it was part of the formal
stipulation that the duchies should be handed over to ' a prince
of the Holy Roman Empire who should be designated by the
Emperor Napoleon.'' Nothing in appearance could be more
reassuring. The dimensions of the new State were modest, and
it was clearly destined for a German, who, as a member of the
Reich, would owe homage and fealty to the head of the German
Empire.

But all inferences drawn from the written word of treaties
were delusive. As to the homage, that, as Napoleon wrote to
Talleyrand, must remain in the greatest obscurity. 'I will
decide in course of time,' said th2 Emperor, ' if the duchies are
to be fiefs of the German Empire or of my Empire.'' To predict
any finality as to the size of the new State would be equally
hazardous. Created as a makeweight to Prussia, it must be
increased with every augmentation of Prussian territory. If,
for instance, Prussia were detached from Holland and the Lower
Rhine, and given compensation in the north, one might extend
the States of the new prince, give him Mtinster, Hesse-Darmstadt,
and their appurtenances, as, for instance, Hamburg or some
other Hanseatic or mediate town V In other words, the new
principality, which is to be ' included either by family or
geographical relations within the system of France,'' will admit
of indefinite extension. Formed out of the humiliation of
Prussia, and created at a period of great tension between Paris
and Berlin, it is designed primarily as a check upon Prussian
influence. It is a buffer between Prussia and the Rhine ; it
places a bridle upon Hesse- Cassel to the east ; it facilitates the
supervision of Hamburg in the north ; it gives to France the
first stages on the road to Berlin. In the spring of 1806 these
military considerations were all-important. On March 8 it was
announced to Prince Joseph that the Duchies of Cleves and
Berg were to go to Murat. ' The Prince Murat,' said Napoleon

1 Corr. xi. 562, no. 9,716.

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF BERG 177

to the Senate, ' is to be charged with an important part of the
frontiers of the Empire.*' A soldier was summoned to do
a soldier's work.

On March 15 a decree conferred upon Prince Joachim Murat
the Duchies of Cleves and Berg, to be transmitted in order of
primogeniture to his male descendants lawful and natural, and
in default of heirs to pass successively to the heirs of the
Emperor, to those of Joseph, and to those of Louis. Yet in
no case were the duchies to be united to the Crown of France.
The heir-presumptive was to be styled Duke of Cleves, and the
dignity of Grand Admiral of France was to be hereditary in
the ducal family, and to descend with the duchies. * You must
not,1 wrote Napoleon to the new sovereign, * put up the French
arms anywhere V But however carefully the new principality
was discriminated from France, it was clear that Murat was to
remain a French prince, and that his policy was to be shaped by
his brother-in-law. ' Your rank in my palace,' wrote Napoleon,
' is fixed by the rank which you have in my family, and your
rank in my family is fixed by the rank of my sister.' The
Prussian government was fully justified in its expostulation
against so flagrant a breach of the spirit and letter of the
Treaty of Schonbrunn.

On March 25 the Duke of Cleves and Berg made his entry
into Dusseldorf, the capital of his dominions, and a city whose
name he was at that time unable to spell. 'At the moment,'
says the Moniteur, 6 that His Highness stepped upon the flying
bridge, the music of the guard of honour struck up, and the
sounds of instruments mingled with acclamations conveyed to
the Prince while he was crossing the stream the first expression of
the transports which burst out as he descended upon the territory
of Berg.' At the gate of the palace the new sovereign was
received by the Estates, the Privy Council, and the Regency.
When the members of these bodies had been severally presented
to him, he conferred long with them upon the industrial
interests of Berg, 'gaining all hearts by the grace of his
discourse, and the announcement of the benefits which he would
bring to the State.' In the evening he went to the theatre, and
was received with tumultuous enthusiasm. At the Hotel de

1 Corr. xii. 191, no. 9,975.

FISHER N

178 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Ville ' two escutcheons sustained by a genius ' were displayed
on a transparency. On the first was traced ' Vive TEmpereur
Napoleon^ and below the second the triumphs of Joachim,
Victoire de Wertingen, Victoire cTUlm, Passage dupont de Vienne,
Victoire cTAusterlitz.

On the next day the Prince, attired in a costume of the
greatest magnificence, received the oaths of the members of
the Estates, and of the executive and judicial authorities. He
was then conducted by the clergy to the church, where he heard
a solemn mass. ( The crowd,' says the Moniteur, ' was immense ;
it is impossible to paint the enthusiasm,' and, indeed, Murat wrote
to Napoleon that the welcome surpassed all his expectations.

But if Diisseldorf was pleased with Prince Joachim, Prince
Joachim was by no means pleased with Diisseldorf. c Tell me,
if you know, when you think that I can hope to return,'' he
wrote to Talleyrand three days after the solemn entry, when
he had made research into the finance of the duchy, and found
that it left ' hardly anything at the disposition of the prince."5
On the same day he dilated to Napoleon on the smallness of
his budget, the poverty of his people, and his inability to raise
two regiments of 1,800 men apiece. He insisted that he must
have more elbow-room, and a wider area of resource. The
territories of the abbeys of Essen, Werden, and Elten had been
acquired by Prussia in 1803 ; they contained rich coal-fields,
and properly should belong to the Duchy of Cleves. But
Murat was not content with demanding these abbeys. He
must also have the County of Mark, which was ' indispensable,1
and 'earnestly desired' by the inhabitants of his dominion.
Nor did he confine his energies to paper. On March 28, the
very day upon which these complaints were penned, French
troops were sent to occupy the territories of the abbeys. It so
happened that a Prussian force was in possession, and that the
French were driven off. The spirits of the Duke of Cleves rose
at the news. ' While I await the orders of your Majesty, your
Majesty may count that the Prussians will not impose on me.
Command me to chase them from Westphalia.' Murat, in fact,
saw with some penetration that a Prussian war was an ante-
cedent condition of the growth of his principality, and busily
set himself to create friction. Napoleon at last burst out into

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF BERG 179

indignant rebuke. 'You must not turn all Germany against
you. You act so precipitately that you will infallibly be
bound to recede. ... It is not my policy to annoy the King of
Prussia. You must not show yourself such a restless neighbour.
I recommend to you prudence and tranquillity V

Meanwhile Napoleon had pursued the new sovereign with
letter after letter of precise instruction as to the conduct which
he should pursue in the duchies. On March 23 he wrote, in
reference to some hasty proposals as to the organization of the
country : —

' You must not take any decisive step now, because it will be
convenient to give both countries the same organization. You
will order that the octroi of the Rhine shall be paid in the
same manner and on the same footing as under the Prussian
regime. You may seize all the property of the immediate
nobility at Berg and in the whole duchy. You must dismiss
as soon as possible the employes of La Tour and Taxis from the
postal service. At Wesel there are none of them, but they are
always to be found in the Duchy of Berg. It was an imperial fief,
and it was thus that the Emperor was kept informed of every-
thing which was going on in Germany. . . . Nominate natives
to the postal service, who will be attached to the country.
Appoint on the spot people from Berg to the posts of Cleves,
and people from Cleves to the posts of Berg. ... In general you
should put more confidence in the Bavarians than in the Prussian
agents. When you have got to the bottom of the situation of
affairs in your new States, you will see that it is impossible that
a population of 300,000 souls should bring in so little as you
say. The ordinary calculation is seven florins per soul, which
would give a revenue of 2,000,000 florins or 4,000,000 francs.
That does not mean that you are to be less economical, for you
will want a small army both to occupy the youth of your
country, and for the dignity of your State. According to the
French usage, troops cost too much ; according to the Bavarian
usage, they are much cheaper.'

On April 4 follows another batch of directions :-—

6 1 think you must form a regiment of four battalions, each
battalion of eight companies, so as to be able to put 2,400 men

1 Corr. xii. 291, no. 10,107.

n2

180 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

into the field, with a company of artillery and six pieces of
cannon. But you must take care not to form them too hastily.
You must follow the economic manner of the country : German
troops cost less than ours do. You must also pay great attention
to the choice of officers, and appoint many landed proprietors.

' I am much surprised to learn that the principal people of
the Duchy of Cleves have not wished to take the oath : let
them swear within twenty-four hours ; and if they don't, arrest
them, imprison them, and confiscate their property.

'I have re-read with attention the project of organization
which you have sent me. It is incomplete and bad. I have
dictated to M. Maret some articles which he will send you by
the same courier, not as anything definitive, but to show you
how the thing ought to be done. Do not hurry. If the
country of Berg and Cleves is to receive a good constitution,
you must give yourself time to observe and see. Collect all the
information ; then it will be possible to arrive at an organiza-
tion which shall suit the inhabitants and yourselves, and which
may render your neighbours envious of forming part of your
dominions. That is especially the end which you should propose
to yourself.

' Three ministers are enough. 6,000 francs apiece is a suit-
able salary. Eight Councillors of State, at a salary of 2,000
apiece, seem sufficient for the country. As to the Estates, one
cannot form an idea until one knows how they are composed.
As to Justice, one must also know how it is formed and paid at
present. Probably appeals went in the last instance to Munich,
or even before the courts of the Empire. This must be
abolished, and the highest Court of Appeal must be at Dussel-
dorf. As to property, seize the goods of the Order of Malta,
of the Teutonic Order, and of the monks. All that together
ought to increase your domain. What with the land and that
portion of the revenue which will be reserved to your uses, you
should have an income of 2,000,000 francs, so that you may
maintain your State without having need of anything further.
The troops, canals, debts, and other public purposes should
be defrayed from the treasury funds, of which you have the
administration V

1 Corr. xii. 211, no. 10,009 ; 258-9, nos. 10,054-6.

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF BERG 181

It would appear that in May there was an unpleasant scene
between Bonaparte and the Murats. Caroline and Joachim had
asked for Holland, which neither Louis nor his wife were anxious
to take. When their petition was declined, 'the ambitious
sister,' as she was called at St. Cloud, complained bitterly of
the small lot which she had received on the right bank of the
Rhine. On this she and her husband were threatened with
permanent exile to the Duchies of Cleves and Berg, and, scared
by so dreadful a prospect, threw themselves into the arms of the
Talley rands l. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs was at
that time addressing his adroit intelligence to the organization
of Western and Southern Germany, and in the arrangements of
the Rhenish Confederacy the claims of the Murats were not
forgotten. The Grand-Duke Joachim, Prince of the French
Empire and Admiral of France, received a seat in the College
of Kings ; the territory and population of his duchy was
practically doubled by the acquisition of the Duchy of Nassau
and the Principality of Dillenberg, and finally the postal
monopoly of Northern Germany, which had belonged to the
House of Thurn and Taxis ever since 1615, was placed in his
hands. In return for these advantages he was required to
furnish a military contingent of 5,000 men.

Still Murat was dissatisfied. The grand- duchy, though
doubled, was paltry when compared to Holland or Naples ; its
population only 590,000, its revenues insufficient. The County
of Mark and the Westphalian provinces of Prussia lay in
tempting proximity, and the Grand-Duke had 10,000 French
troops under his command. If he could only push the Emperor
into war with Prussia there would be more room. A pretext
was not wanting. Certain territories which were to pass under
his control were occupied by Prussian troops, whom, as he
explained to the Emperor, it would be easy to expel. 6 Verit-
able madness,' answered Napoleon with heat, on August %
' I cannot describe the pain with which I read your letters.
You are desperately precipitate2.' Yet there was a method
in Murat's madness ; and, despite the lectures of the
Emperor, he continued his policy of goading the government
of Berlin.

1 Bailleu, ii. 461-2. 2 Corr. xiii. 33, no. 10,587.

182 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

One more assault upon the proprieties of international inter-
course was committed by Murat previous to the outbreak of
hostilities. On September 1, 1806, he convoked his Estates,
nominally to vote the budget but in reality to decree the
abolition of all fiscal privilege. To the twenty-seven nobles
and twenty burgesses of the assembly it was explained that
the properties and domains of the dispossessed princes in the
duchies must contribute pro rata to the exchequer ; but though
in itself the principle was admirable, its application to the
duchies violated rights which had been expressly guaranteed
not two months before by the act of the Confederation of
the Rhine, and by the Emperor of the French. But Murat
was not burdened with constitutional scruples, and Napoleon
could not afford to quarrel with his lieutenant on the eve of
a war.

Many brilliant exploits arc recorded of Murat during the
Prussian campaign. He displayed himself a born leader of
cavalry, and as he was not prone to underestimate his own
merits he expected a great reward. At the interview of Tilsit
he was for appearing in a Polish uniform, as a hint that he
deserved the Polish crown. 'Go and put on your general's
uniform,'' said Napoleon, ' you look like Franconi.' That ambi-
tion then was slain, and Murat had to relapse upon his dull
little duchy, the resources of which had been considerably
depleted by the requisitions of the army of the King of
Holland. A negotiation, lasting five months and seventeen
days, then ensued as to territorial adjustments. The crux was
the town of Wesel, which Napoleon regarded as one of the most
important fortresses of the Rhine, and which he had from the
first been determined to retain in French hands. Murat made
himself ridiculous by some wild talk. He said that he would
throw himself with his army into Wesel and defend the town.
One would see whether the Emperor would have the face to
besiege him before the eyes of Europe, and as for him, he
would hold out to the last. But all the same the instrument
was signed on January 20, 1808. Wesel was ceded to France,
and incorporated in the French Department of the Ruhr. In
return the grand-duchy was augmented by the Prussian
County of Mark with the town of Lippstadt, the Prussian

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF BERG 183

portion of the Principality of Munster, the Prussian County
of Tecklenberg, and by the County of Lingen which had been
inherited by the House of Brandenburg in 1702 from the House
of Orange — an addition of 146 square miles and 362,000
inhabitants.

The Grand-Duchy of Berg had now reached its maximum
development1. It contained a population of 120,000 souls,
and was about a hundred and fifty miles long by ninety to
fifty-seven broad. Since the country had not been ruled by
any long succession of sovereigns, it was not deeply attached to
any particular dynasty, and the public spirit was reported to be
good, that is to say, well affected towards France, the aristocracy
to be reasonable and the middle class to be numerous. Every
canton, says Beugnot, had its peculiar characteristics, moulded
by religion, government, and topography2. Munster, an old
Catholic ecclesiastical fief, retained the manners of the seven-
teenth century. The capital was controlled by a bishop, and
filled with religious houses and the winter residences of the
feudal nobility. ' At Munster the palaces are spacious rather
than commodious ; the servants are numerous, the old etiquette
severely retained, the furniture and plate of a heavy richness."'
A refractory servant was punished by being made to sit upon
the chevalet, a kind of wooden horse, which it was painful to
bestride. The patriarchal authority exercised by the lords over
their servants and their serfs was wielded with mildness and
charity, and the rural population, which was bound to the soil,
received assistance in sickness and old age. The peasantry of
this old-fashioned province is described to us as being in
general religious, sober, and laborious, while the nobility were
generally charitable and often dignified and well informed.
* When,' said Beugnot, ' I visited this old country, my Ger-
mania in hand, I recognized the truth of the great painter's
colours, and I no longer believe that his pictures are

1 On Jan. 22, 1811, the portions of the duchy north of the river Lippe
were united to the French Empire and went to form the Departments
of Lippe and Ems Superieur. This, like all other sudden readjustments
of territory, caused considerable administrative and financial difficulty.
A. F. iv. 1865, 1886 a.

3 Beugnot, Memoires, i. 290 ff.

184 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

imaginary1.1 The neighbouring County of Mark presented
a striking contrast. This province, hilly and unfertile, con-
served the traces of the long and attentive administration of
the great Frederick. It had, in fact, profited by all his good
laws, while escaping his fiscal avidity. There was not a water-
course which had not been utilized, not a profitable line of
communication which had not been opened, no advantageous
commercial relations which had not been established. Under the
capable administration of M. Eversmann, the County of Mark
had become one of the most active industrial centres in Germany.
The population is described as enterprising, often irreligious,
often unscrupulous, but strong, and determined not to acquiesce
in defeat. Under the French rule they dreamed of vengeance,
and made no secret of it 2. And the old Prussian administrators
fostered the sentiment. The County of Nassau-Siegen was the
ancient patrimony of the House of Orange, which has given
a dynasty to Holland and to England. The inhabitants
of this picturesque district still showed the oak under which
Maurice was seated, when a deputation of the Beggars of
Holland came to invite him to lead them to liberty. Yet
they were now forced to pass to an alien power, and their
last native prince surrendered the home of his race in
response to a demand conveyed to him with incredible
brutality 3.

The Duchy of Berg itself had been an appanage first of the
Palatine, and then of the Bavarian House. Its capital, Diisseldorf,
a pleasant and well-built town upon the Rhine, had been the
seat of a polished Court, and owing to the marriage of a Prince
Palatine to a lady of the Medici House, possessed one of the
finest picture-galleries in Northern Europe, the treasures of which
were, however, removed to Munich when the duchy passed into

1 The sympathies of the ecclesiastics and gentry of Miinster were
strongly Austrian. ( Le tout est autrichien, on y reve la domination d'un
archiduc.' The canons are described as a ' milice autrichienne.' It would
be well, says an official of the duchy, to introduce some hussards into the
town. c Avec ce moyen ce pays sera civilise en moins de deux annees.' —
Bulletin du Grand-duche de Berg (March 1809) ; A. F. iv. 1225.

2 Beugnot's statement is fully confirmed by contemporary correspon-
dence ; cf. A. F. iv. 1225.

3 Beugnot, Memoires} i. 300.

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF BERG 185

French hands. The ducal castle of Bensburg, built in the
Italian style, has been much admired, and the influence of the
Court diffused through Diisseldorf and its immediate neighbour-
hood that soft and docile temperament which finds easy satis-
faction in official posts. Further east, however, in the valleys of
Barmen and Elberfeld, and in the cantons of Ronstorf, Remscheid,
and Solingen, there was a vigorous and independent industrial
population.

The constitution of the Duchy of Berg was regulated by two
decrees of 1672 and 1675, which confirmed a custom still more
ancient. According to these documents the country was repre-
sented by a Diet consisting of two colleges, the College of Nobles
and the College of Towns, which must be convoked at least once
a year. The College of Nobles consisted of thirty-eight members ;
and it was necessary to possess sixteen quarterings of nobility,
and one at least of 160 specified manors, to be entitled to
a seat. The College of Towns consisted of eight members
drawn from four boroughs. The Diet was bound to secrecy,
and exerted but a nominal control over affairs, since the assent
of one of the colleges was deemed sufficient authority for the
executive, and the sovereign could always dominate the College
of Towns. Further, many legislative acts had been published
without any communication with the Diet at all. Yet year by
year this assembly had solemnly met, voted the taxes which
were demanded of it, addressed a statement of grievances to the
government commission, and receiving a formal and insignificant
reply had quietly accepted dismissal.

For purposes of local government the duchy was divided into
eighteen bailiwicks, each of which was presided over by a grand
bailiff, who was always a noble and generally an absentee. In
every bailiwick there was a receiver of domains, a receiver of
contributions, inspectors of public works, and foresters, all of
whom were dearly paid and insufficiently controlled. There was,
it would seem, much miscellaneous plunder of the inhabitants
by the functionaries, and this malignant spot in the body politic
was aggravated by the custom according to which the servants
of the State received part of their remuneration in the shape
of corn, hay, and other products from the domains. Another
serious defect was the absence of a clear division and definition

186 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

of administrative functions. ' The administration,1 complained
Murat, * is a chaos which I have great difficulty in clearing up.
There was never a less regular organization. A portion of the
revenues belonged to the King of Bavaria, a portion to the
Duke of Bavaria, his brother-in-law. A portion was deemed
to belong to the country itself, and was appropriated to certain
branches of expenditure. But all this was administered without
any kind of order. There was a royal regency, a ducal regency,
a privy council, a commission, ... no one had fixed attributions.
The president of the privy council enjoyed all the authority,
and sent the business now to one member of the council and
now to another, so that no one was specially charged with any
department, with the result that I can find no one who has
a complete knowledge of any branch of the service.' To the
French, the system of justice appeared to contain three principal
defects. The nobles and functionaries could only be tried by
the Aulic Council of Dusseldorf; there were no commercial
courts ; and the law, which consisted mainly of provincial
statutes and local custom, was unsystematized.

The Diet of the Duchy of Cleves was even more advanced
in atrophy and impotence than the representative assembly of
Berg, since while the College of Towns was no larger, the extreme
exclusiveness of the aristocracy had here reduced the College of
Nobles to a congregation of three. This however was of no
importance, since the duchy was administered on the intelligent
and energetic lines of the Prussian bureaucracy. The French
admired the strict order and economy which prevailed every-
where in Cleves. The duchy was divided into two circles and
twenty-nine bailiwicks. For each circle there were two resident
councillors who supervised and controlled, one in the towns,
and the other in the country districts, the execution of all the
orders of the government. There was thus no room for the
malpractices of subordinate officials.

The French official was bound to confess that he found little
trace of public discontent with the existing regime. The
grievances which were most generally felt in the Duchy of Berg
were the exemption of the nobles from taxation, and the
exclusive privilege of the four towns represented in the Diet.
There was no serious complaint of the judicial organization in

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF BERG 187

either province, only that litigation was somewhat costly in
Berg, and that the Aulic Council was slow1.

As the Grand-Duke was about to take possession of his new
territory, he received a sudden call to Bayonne (February 20,
1808). The lieutenant of the Emperor readily forgot the
little German duchy in the excitement of that Spanish drama
in which he played so unscrupulous a part, and which lured
him from Diisseldorf to Madrid, and then from Madrid to
Naples. Beside the prospect of a Spanish throne, Minister and
Cleves, the objects of so much negotiation, sank at once into
matters of complete indifference.

The Grand-Duke of Berg had paid two flying visits to his
principality before he was summoned away to Spain. His
theatrical displays of magnificence may have pleased the mild
inhabitants of Diisseldorf, who were unaccustomed to splendours,
and his martial achievements were followed with pride and
interest by the inhabitants of the duchy. 'Your subjects,'1 said
his Minister of Finance, in language which perhaps was not
entirely hollow, ' who remember that scarce two years ago you
were in Moravia, having subdued the capital of Austria ; that
not a year ago you stood under the walls of Konigsberg after
riding through Berlin and Warsaw, are astonished to-day
suddenly to learn that you are in the capital of Spain, and
are proud to see the name of their sovereign connected with
so many brilliant undertakings.'' Yet despite these diversions
the foundations of a French administrative system were laid
down under Murat. 'Our Grand-Duke,' so runs the Journal
Politique de Mannheim (Aug. 22, 1806), ' occupies himself with-
out relaxation with the administration of his States. The
territory of the Duchies of Cleves and Berg is divided into six
arrondissements. In each arrondissement a provincial council
will be established. There is a question of constructing a new
castle in the town. A plan of a new university is being
devised ; also a plan of new schools and houses of education V

Three ministers (Justice and Foreign Relations, Interior,

1 A. F. iv. 1225 ; Agar's report.

2 The proposal before the Council, Aug. 2, 1806, was that a university-
should be founded in the Convent of Diissel at Duisburg. Staatsraths-
Akten, Diisseldorf Archives.

188 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Finance), a Council of State, a Privy Council consisting of the
ministers and two councillors of State, formed the organs of
the central government. An old college friend of Murat's,
by name Agar, accepted the portfolio of Finance and the
title of Count of Mosburg. Fuschius, a Bavarian judge, was
placed in the Ministry of Justice, while another native, the
Count of Nesselrode, chief of an old family of diplomats,
formerly Grand-Marshal and Director of the commission of
the Berg Estates, was entrusted with the portfolio of the
Interior. A supreme Court of Appeal for the whole duchy
was established at Diisseldorf, and a legal commission assisted
by lawyers from each of the provinces of the duchy was
appointed to frame a Civil Code1. The sale of ecclesiastical
lands, and the abolition of tithes and feudal dues, paved the way
for the regime of equality, and the Estates of the grand-duchy
helped to complete the process by voluntarily surrendering
the fiscal immunities of the nobles. By an excellent decree
State officials were forbidden to receive contributions in kind
from the domains. A Prussian enactment which forbade
burghers to acquire noble land in Cleves was abolished, and
a common land-tax admitting of no privilege and no exceptions
was a most beneficial innovation. As a provisional measure,
provincial councillors were appointed to hold the civil registers,
to collect statistics, to report upon local finance, roads, and
bridges, to inspect churches, hospitals, and schools, to provide
for the billeting and provisioning of troops, and to propose
encouragements for agriculture and commerce2. Everywhere
save in the capital, French municipal institutions were intro-
duced. Not a penny was to be spent in the dark. 'The
budgets of the municipal councils are to be transmitted
to the Provincial Councillor, who will transmit them to the
Minister of the Interior. The budgets of the larger towns are

1 The instructions given to this commission in the Council of State
at Diisseldorf (April 17, 1807) were (1) that it should follow the order and
arrangement of the Code Napoleon, and should only depart from it where
it was indispensable for the public interest of the duchy ; (2) that the
' jurisconsults should penetrate themselves with the laws and customs
of their several provinces/ so as to see how far they might agree with
the Code Napoleon. Staatsraths-Akten, Diisseldorf Archives.

2 Cf. Winkopp, Der rheinische Bund, i. 118 ff., and A. F. iv. 1842.

.«■!■■ It J- III

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF BERG 189

decreed by us, those of the smaller towns are decreed by the
Minister of the Interior.'' The Director, the 'Adjoint,' the
Commissioner of Police, the Municipal Councillor, were to be
nominated in the larger towns by the Grand-Duke, in the
smaller towns by the Minister of the Interior. There was no
room for autonomy, for variation, for picturesque survival, for
miscellaneous dinings at the public expense, for secret municipal
jobbery. 'No official employed in municipal administration
may have any interest, direct or indirect, in any enterprises
whatever which concern the commune.' To the government
of Murat must belong the credit of having introduced into
Germany the first enlightened and comprehensive municipal
ordinance. The decree of October 13, 1807, was for the
Duchy of Berg in one sense what the Municipal Corporations
Act of 1835 was for England. It provided a clear, rational,
and homogeneous plan of government. In another sense, how-
ever, it differed from the Liberal ordinance of the Melbourne
ministry, for it betrayed certain vices incidental to a military
despotism which was jealous of the labouring classes, and
anxious to obtain the complete disposal of all local resources
for its military ends 1. Nor are these the only changes
which belong to the Murat period. Roads were made, internal
custom duties were abolished, a new administration was esta-
blished for the coal-mines of Werden and Essen, and decrees
were issued organizing the management of the forests, the
functions of notaries, and the penalties for military desertion 2.

At rare intervals a letter from their absentee ruler would
disturb the equanimity and excite the energies of the Council
of State. On February 2, 1808, His Highness, ' wishing to give
to his State a constitution as conformable as possible with that
of the Kingdom of Westphalia,' ordered his Council immediately
to submit projects for the application of the Code Napoleon,

1 Thus the municipal officers were required to c regulate military billets
and to order requisitions to he made for the public service. ' The com-
missioner of police was charged e with the repression of mendicity and
vagabondage, with the direction of guilds and corporations of artisans,
with measures adapted to prevent unions of working men being formed
for the purpose of strikes or raising wages.' Recueil des Actes du Gouverne-
ment du Grand-duche de Berg, Diisseldorf, 1808 ; A. F. iv. 1842.

2 A. F. iv. 1842.

190 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

for a Judicial Code, for a division of the territory into two or
three departments, for a new monetary system, and a new
system of weights and measures. The Council, which had not
met for ten months, adopted, as was natural, the line of least
resistance in dealing with this enormous programme. After
a week's interval they decided to recommend that the French
Civil Code and Code of Civil Procedure should be adopted
on January 1, 1809, that a commission should be appointed
to propose 'regulative dispositions' upon points, such as
serfage and entails, where there was a conflict between the old
and the new law, and that the French monetary system and the
French system of weights and measures should be introduced \
A project was prepared for the division of the duchy into four
departments, and another for the abolition of serfage, and on
June 28, 1808, a draft law of mortgage was submitted to the
Council2. Of the drafts and memoirs so busily and often so
ably prepared by the German members of his Council, but few
can have received serious attention of the Grand-Duke, whose
face was never seen in Dusseldorf after the Prussian war had
called him to the front in 1806. A restless cavalry officer on
his promotion, he never put his heart into the internal affairs of
the duchy, whose size and importance he undervalued and
despised. At iirst he was either struggling to annex new
territories or combating the Emperor's claims to Wesel.
During the last six months of his rule he was dreaming of
the throne of Spain, and having made up his mind that in
any case he would never return to Berg, was determined to
'squeeze the orange before it slipped from his hands.' On
July 15, 1808, by the Treaty of Bayonne, the Grand-Duke
formally ceded his duchy to Napoleon ; and the faithful Agar,
Minister of Finance, being instructed to sell the domains of the
duchy and to anticipate the revenue, left a legacy of needless
embarrassment to his successor3. The vulgar greed of the
Grand-Duke excited the ire of the Emperor himself. 'Your
agents,' he remarked, July 30, 1808, 'are packing up every-

1 Staatsraths-Akten, Dusseldorf Archives ; Mosburg to Bassano, May 1,
1809 ; A. F. iv. 1225. a A. F. iv. 1842.

3 Count Beugnot, while complaining of this conduct in his memoirs,
wrote a letter of flowery compliment to the culprit : f Vous avez fait

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF BERG 191

thing and transporting it to the left bank ; your studs are
going towards the Tyrol. That creates a detestable impression
in the country and in Germany. Is it worth while to show
avidity for trifles ? ' So great was the Emperor's indignation
that, in defiance of the express terms of the Treaty of Bayonne,
he would not permit a penny from the arrears of the grand-
ducal revenue to be exported to Naples l.

On July 31, 1808, Count Beugnot, an experienced adminis-
trator who had spent some months as Minister of Finance in
the new Kingdom of Westphalia, took over the control of the
duchy. The Imperial Commissioner, as he was called, was
inducted into the business by the Count of Mosburg, with
whom he enjoyed the advantage of a daily conference for a
period of three months2.

Beugnot was vain and jealous, sensitive and intelligent, up-
right and prolix. He thought Mosburg unscrupulous, and
being of a cautious and conservative temperament, he was
inclined to moderate the pace of reform. But of his zeal and
industry there can be no question. In a notable passage of
retrospect he has depicted not only his own sensations upon
assuming the office of Imperial Commissioner, but also the
spirit which animated the civil servants of the Empire. 'It
was then,' he writes, 'a position in Europe to be a Frenchman,
and it was a great position to represent the Emperor anywhere ;
save that I should not have abused my office with impunity,
I was in Germany what the proconsuls were in Rome. The
same respect, the same obedience on the part of the people,
the same obsequiousness on the part of the nobility, the same
desire to please or gain my favour. We were at that time
under the charm of the Peace of Tilsit, the invincibility of the
Emperor had not yet received a wound. I came from Paris,

comme le bon Dieu, vous avez tire une assez belle machine de chaos. ' — Murat,
Lieutenant de roi, Comte Murat, Avant-propos.

1 Lecestre, Lettres inedites, i. 226, and cf. Murat to Napoleon, Sept. 28,
1808 : i II est cruel pour moi d' avoir toujour s a me justifier.' — A. F. iv.
1714 a. Murat wrote to Agar to say that the revenues of the duchy were
guaranteed him till Aug. 1. The Emperor, however, refused to allow the
outstanding sums to be remitted. Murat to Agar, July 19, 1808 ; Agar
to Beugnot, Dec. 28, 1808 ; Staatsraths-Akten, Diisseldorf Archives.

2 A. F. iv. 1225.

192 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

where I had passed my life at his Court, that is to say, in
the midst of the memorable works and miracles of his reign.
In his councils I had admired this genius who dominated
human thought ; I believed that he was born to chain up
fortune, and it seemed to me quite natural that people should
be prostrate at his feet. ... I presented myself in the grand-
duchy, under the empire of these ideas ; nothing astonished me
in the consideration and even the respect of which I was the
object ; yet I did not allow myself to be lulled to sleep by
these flattering deceptions, I worked from morn to night with
a singular ardour, and astonished the natives of the country,
who did not know that the Emperor exerted upon his servants,
however distant, the miracle of the real presence V

If Verres had been controlled as closely as the ' proconsul ' of
Berg, the world would have lost a famous oration. Count
Beugnot was directed to correspond with a minister in Paris,
and to submit every week to the home government a detailed
account of everything which might interest the Emperor in the
grand-duchy, and in those circles of Germany which were
covered by the ducal postal system. This was not all. The
minister in Paris corresponded directly with all the ministers of
the duchy, particularly with Count Nesselrode, Beugnofs most
influential colleague and rival. He received reports from all
the chiefs of the civil and military service, all the circulars and
decrees of the prefects, a monthly report from the director
of every part of the revenue, accompanied by statistical tables.
Every ten days the receivers of the arrondissement sent him
a statement of their payments into the Treasury. He kept
an alphabetical register of all the notes furnished by the
functionaries of the duchy, whether military or civil. The pro-
cureur-general was instructed to report to him upon the ad-
ministration of justice, and all the minutes and reports of the
Council of State at Dusseldorf were sent to Paris. And we
may be sure that all this multifarious information collected by
a Gaudin, a Bassano, a Roederer, was carefully digested for the
use of the Emperor himself2.

1 Beugnot, Memoires, i. 312-3.

2 Feuille de travail, Nov. 15, 1812 ; A. F. iv. 1226, 1843 ; Roederer,
(Euvres, iii. 425.

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF BERG 193

There was now no longer any diplomatic obscurity about the
Duchy of Berg. It was virtually owned by Napoleon, who
intended that it should be governed as a French province. From
July 31, 1808, 'all the administrative acts and judgements of
the courts, and the acts of the notaries,' were ' made under the
authority and entitled with the name and titles of His Imperial
and Royal Majesty V It is the Emperor who drafts the decrees
on military organization, who settles the numbers, the equipment,
and the movements of the regiment of Berg. It is he who
orders the fortifications of Dusseldorf to be destroyed and the
town to be embellished. Nor is his interest solely military.
He must have the budget for 1808 in receipts and expenditure ;
he must know what the duchy yielded him for August, what
it will yield him per month, in fact he must have a 'perfect
knowledge' of the duchy. He must have it divided into
departments and districts, furnished with justices of the peace
and municipalities ; in short, an administration which assimilates
it as soon as possible to the institutions of France. A few
weeks later he orders that the Prussian officials should be dis-
missed, and that a scheme for the division of the duchy into
departments should be instantly supplied him 2. The Spanish
war diverts his attention to a distant quarter, and to larger
issues. If he does not annex the duchy it is because nothing
would be gained by annexation, and something might be lost.
Had he not formally promised that he would not carry the
French frontier beyond the Rhine, and how would the manu-
facturers of France regard the inclusion within the Empire of
formidable competitors ? He does not then expressly annex.
On the contrary, just before the outbreak of the Austrian war
in 1809, when he is sending circular letters to the members
of the Rhenish Confederation, he remembers the anomalous
situation of the Grand-Duchy of Berg. He has a nephew four
and a half years of age, the Prince Napoleon Louis, son of the

1 Staatsraths-Akten, Dusseldorf Archives.

2 Corr. xvii. 474, no. 14,280 ; 507, no. 14,313. The duchy was divided into
four departments (Rhin, 190| square miles, 351,394 population ; Sieg, 214
square miles, 138,550 population ; Ruhr, 214 square miles, 231,400 popu-
lation ; Ems, 269 square miles, 215,150 population). Tableau statistique
du Grand-duche de Bergjusquau 13 dec. 1810 ; Affaires etrangeres, Berg, 13.

fisher o

194 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

King of Holland. By a patent of March 3 the boy is made
Grand-Duke, while the Emperor reserves to himself and to his
successors the right to dispose of the duchy in case of the death
of the prince without heirs. Three days later the child's father
is curtly informed of the news. Nothing could be more satis-
factory. Balm has been administered to diplomatic sensibilities,
while the realities of the situation remain unchanged. In
Diisseldorf, rule Beugnot and Nesselrode ; in Paris, Bassano and
Napoleon 1. An inspired passage in the Moniteur reported the
Emperor's reception of the child. ' Never forget,' he said, ' that
in whatever post you may be placed by my policy and the
interests of my Empire, your first duties are to me, your second
towards France. All your other duties, even those which you
owe to the people whom I may confide to you, only come after
these2.'

On one occasion, in th^ autumn of 1811, the Emperor
himself descended on Diisseldorf, and in a series of notes
jotted down on November % with a view to a council summoned
for the next day, he expounded his ideas of the government
appropriate to the country.

8 For the general organization one must first have a Council
of State. The present Council does not appear to be one. It
ought to act as a Court of Cassation, it ought to be the supreme
judge in administrative cases, the interpreter of the law, the reviser
of budgets and accounts. Whereas it should represent the
country, His Majesty sees nothing but foreigners in it. If the
country has representations to make, the Council of State
should be its organ and possess its confidence. Masters of
requests and auditors must be created in connection with it.
A list of the most heavily taxed persons should be presented
for the composition of the departmental electoral colleges.
His Majesty does not wish electoral colleges for the arron-
dissements. If it suits His Majesty to have an assembly of the
country it shall be composed of the colleges. The members
of the colleges shall be named in the first instance by His

1 Beugnot was first ordered to correspond with Gaudin, Duke of Gaieta.
In 1809 Maret, Duke of Bassano, became the minister responsible for the
affairs of Berg. He was succeeded by Count Roederer, Sept. 24, 1810.

2 Moniteur, 1810, no. 203.

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF BERG 195

Majesty ; they shall be renewed in conformity with the French
constitutions.'

The document goes on to say that the French judicial system
must be introduced by January 1, 1812, that a university and
a lycee should be established at Diisseldorf, that four or five
secondary schools teaching French, Latin, and mathematics
should be set on foot in the duchy, and that on and after
January 1, 1812, all young people of the country should be
compelled to quit foreign schools, and to receive the remainder
of their education either in the duchy itself or in France. A
bishopric and a chapter were to be erected at Diisseldorf, the
parishes to be divided and circumscribed, and the principles of
the Concordat introduced. A school of theology was to be
founded in the university, and no cure was to be ordained
who had not received his education either there or in France.
The ministers and pastors of the Lutheran and Calvinist com-
munities were to be named by His Majesty, and 'the rights
of police to be established."' Finally, under the heading of
military organization, the Emperor observed that means must
be sought to obtain officers for the army from natives of the
duchy, since the existing officers were nearly all foreigners, and
that lists of young people should be made out, who could
receive an education at St. Cyr or at St. Germain. On the next
day the Emperor fairly astounded the Council of the duchy by
his extraordinary grasp of the ducal finance, and having roundly
abused JBeugnot for certain liberties which he had presumed to
take with the treasury, left the commissioner to carry out as
best he could the comprehensive instructions which have been
indicated above \ To the King of Westphalia he wrote on
November 3, i I have seen the grand-duchy V He had seen
it in two days.

1 Corr. xxii. 548, no. 18,229 ; Beugnot, Memoires, i. 373-96.

2 Corr. xxii. 555, no. 18,239.

o2

CHAPTER X

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG

( Les hommes sont impuissants pour assurer l'avenir ; les institutions
seules fixent les destinees des nations.' — Napoleon.

1 The Grand-Duchy of Berg,' wrote Beugnot on March 14,
1809 \ • has been made out of provinces formerly possessed by
fifteen different sovereigns holding very various ranks in the
political system of Germany. Each one of these provinces has
preserved up till now its peculiar laws, statutes and customs
supplemented by the Roman Law, the Canon Law, the feudal
institutions, the doctrine of the universities, and the authority of
the commentaries. In the midst of such a chaos, the judges
are as confused with judicial reasonings, as are the litigants
with the diversity of judgements, and law-suits last centuries
because the more they are investigated, the more complicated
they become. The courts are by turns powerful and feeble,
independent and servile. Sometimes they meddle with the
administration and judge the conduct of ministers. Some-
times they have recourse to the ministers to obtain permission
to fulfil their most simple duties.' The French observer was
struck by the fact that there was no Ministere public to
prosecute the criminal, or to defend the helpless and the absent.
Save in the old Prussian province of Cleves the procedure was
entirely written. The prisoner appeared at the bar loaded
with chains, and was liable to the horrid tortures of the sixteenth
century. The courts were numerous, and the total number of
judges exceeded two hundred, but in the districts which had
formerly belonged to Bavaria, judicial posts were bought, sold,
and bequeathed as so much private property, and the main
object of the judge was to replace the capital expended in
purchasing his charge at the expense of the litigant upon whose

1 A. F. iv. 1833.

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG 197

fees he was supported. Equality before the law was not
recognized, for public functionaries, nobles, and officers of the
fisc were incapable of being tried before the inferior tribunals.
Nor was there a clear or satisfactory delimitation of judicial
competence, for there was no matter so important that it could
not be tried in the inferior courts, so long as it did not concern
a privileged person. In that case it would have to go before
the Aulic Council of Diisseldorf or the Regency of Munster.

The transplantation from one country to another of a code
of laws, and of a system of judicial organization, must in all
cases be a delicate proceeding, for though the elementary prin-
ciples of justice are universally appreciated, nation differs from
nation in the principles of their application. To an Englishman
there is something abhorrent in the secret processes before the
juge oVinstruction in a French court. To a Frenchman nothing
can be more revolting than the spectacle of a single judge
conducting a criminal trial. Yet both Frenchmen and English-
men are agreed upon the main principle that justice must be
done without fear or favour, and that while every effort should
be made to detect crime, the accused person should have the
benefit of all the protection which it is in the power of society
to bestow. The immediate introduction of the French codes
into the Grand-Duchy of Berg seemed to the conservative mind
of Count Beugnot to savour of indiscretion. ' Germany,' as he
reminded his government, 4 had not, like France, been levelled by
the legislation of iconoclastic assemblies."' It would require
time and instruction before she could properly attune herself
to the new melodies of the Code. Nor was there any danger
in delay. Divorce was scarcely known even in the communities
separated from the Roman Catholic faith, and consequently
the clauses in the Code which regulated that institution would
be of little practical import. Entails were little known, and,
since feudal succession had already been abolished by decree, it
was unlikely that a delay in the introduction of the Code would
tend to promote inequality of partition. These representations
were received and rejected. On November 12, 1809, an imperial
decree ordered that the Code Napoleon was to have the force
of law in the Grand-Duchy of Berg from January 1, 1810, and
at the same time the imperial commission was requested instantly

198 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

to furnish a draft scheme for judicial organization. Beugnot
had no option but to obey, and a scheme upon the French
model — a Court of Appeal, ten courts of arrcmdissement, and
justices of the peace — was submitted to the consideration of
the Duke of Bassano. But at the same time the Imperial
Commissioner pleaded for delay. The new courts could not,
he argued, well be established until a new method of criminal
procedure had been inaugurated ; the imperfect education of
the local barristers, the difficulty already experienced in making
the Code understood, the fact that the Penal Code was not yet
sanctioned in France, all pointed to delay, to some transitional
arrangement. Why not adjourn all judicial innovation in the
Duchy of Berg till the French system is complete, and the
German judge can be guided by a copious stream of French
precedent ? Or if that were impossible, could not the tran-
sition be effected gradually? 'I insist,' he wrote, 'upon the
need of transitions, and some form of schooling, because, to
my regret, I have daily experience of the feebleness of the
lawyers of the grand-duchy V

The greater part of two years passed in discussions and
projects. Count Nesselrode, the Minister of the Interior for
the grand-duchy, pressed for the introduction of the West-
phalian Code of Civil Procedure, which had been formed indeed
upon the French prototype, but contained certain simplifica-
tions. ' It was,' he wrote, * already well translated into German ;
in it the forms of procedure were developed with more
precision and detail than in the French Code,' and it was finally
recommended by the proximity of the kingdom, and by the
familiarity of the grand-ducal jurisconsults with the West-
phalian legislation 2. A second question which came up for
discussion was the constitution of a Court of Cassation for the
grand-duchy. Count Beugnot, who distrusted the vagaries
of Teutonic jurists, and actually proposed to prohibit all
German commentaries upon the codes, suggested that a single
Court of Cassation should be formed for the whole Confedera-
tion of the Rhine. ' Such a court, far more useful than the old
imperial Court of Wetzlar, though with different attributions,

1 Beugnot to Bassano, Feb. 7, 1810 ; A. F. iv. 1833.

2 A. F. iv. 1833.

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG 199

would implant and cultivate in the States of the Confederation
the beneficent principles of French legislation, and would
preserve Germany from the contagion of commentaries, and the
erudition, good and bad, under which the Code Napoleon is
stifled.' A legal committee formed in Dusseldorf itself sug-
gested that the Council of State of the grand-duchy should
act also as a Court of Cassation, following a precedent which
had been set in the kingdom of Westphalia. But in the end,
possibly owing to representations as to the feebleness of the
local bar and bench, a third course was adopted, and the Court
of Cassation in Paris was given jurisdiction in the Grand-
Duchy of Berg.

The desirability of establishing commercial courts was
another question which occupied the attention of the jurists of
Dusseldorf. The institution was unfamiliar to the Germans,
and it was open to doubt whether its introduction would be in
any way beneficial. When Henry II created the first merchant
judges and consuls in France, a large number of laymen had
already been able to familiarize themselves with judicial func-
tions, either as ' echevins ' of towns, or as mayors, prudhommes,
or legal assessors in the ordinary courts. The legal pro-
fession had not yet become a highly specialized and technical
branch of human activity, and in most of the towns judicial
functions were placed in the hands of the inhabitants. But in
Germany the legal profession now formed a distinct class, and
the verdicts of amateur judges would fail to command con-
fidence or respect. Nor did the motives which had prompted
the establishment of merchant judges in France continue to
exist even in the interior of the Empire. They had been
established in order that commercial matters at least might be
freed from the ruinous and interminable prolixity of ordinary
procedure, from ' the hydra of chicane,' against which THopital
struggled. But with the new code of procedure this motive
disappeared, and * the interest of commerce in all its severity '
could exact no more expedition than was now afforded to it.
It was doubtful whether the merchants of Berg would find any
real advantage in being submitted to the ruling of temporary
amateurs, taken from among themselves. On the contrary, they
would probably prefer to plead before permanent magistrates,

200 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

whose experience and training would give them the required
knowledge. It was accordingly proposed that the Courts of First
Instance should act as Courts of Commerce, and this modifica-
tion of the French system was accepted by the authorities in
Paris.

In the end, not only were all the French codes published
without modification, but the French judicial organization was
substantially introduced in its entirety \ There was a Court of
Appeal at Dusseldorf, an inferior court in each arrondissement,
and below them the justices of the peace. All the judges
were nominated for life by the sovereign, required to submit
monthly reports in French upon the work of their courts, while
annual reports were submitted to the Court of Appeal of the
grand-duchy by the procureur general 2.

The introduction of the jury, and the spectacle of a prisoner
at the bar with his hands unfettered, afforded some gratification
to the natives of Berg. The old local judges tended to become
the juges de paix in their own neighbourhood, and discharged
their functions with competence. In the Prussian provinces
which now formed the Department of the Ruhr, and in the
States of the Prince of Nassau, part of which formed the
Department of Sieg, the bench was distinguished for an excellent
tradition of knowledge and integrity. But the Duchy of Berg
presented an unfavourable contrast. 'The coarsest ignorance
occupied in some places the curule chair, most of the magistrates
were of such mediocre intelligence that they did not know how
to write correctly even in their mother tongue, and, what is
worse, they passed in public opinion for corruptible judges.1
No imputations were levelled against the ability of the Court
of Appeal at Dusseldorf, but the judges knew nothing of the
statutes and customs of the various provinces which composed
the duchy, and should have been recruited by representatives
from each of the judicial areas of which the State was composed.
The procureur general, after commenting upon the lacunae in
legislation, and upon the laws, 'incoherent and often con-
tradictory,1 which ruled the grand-duchy, proposed that a

1 The Civil Code came into general use Jan. 1, 1810 ; the judicial
system, Jan. 1, 1812.

2 A. F. iv. 1833.

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG 201

committee should be formed of the Council of State, with
instructions to choose such of the French laws as should be
susceptible of application to the grand-duchy, and it would, he
said, be equally desirable that interpretative or supplementary
laws, as well as imperial decrees or pronouncements of the
Council of State, relative to the five codes, should be declared
common to the grand-duchy, and inserted without delay in the
Bulletin of Laws, as they passed in France *.

'A complete system of homogeneous laws' was under the
circumstances too much to expect, but the influence of the
Court of Cassation in Paris would no doubt tend to adjust
the interpretation of the five French codes to the imperial
model. A special law of mortgages drafted by Treilhard and
Duchatel was sent down from Paris (since it was represented
that the arrangements of the Civil Code were not suitable to
the needs of the duchy), and formed an important departure
from the French civil law2. There was, however, a strong
desire, both on the part of the authorities in Paris and on the
part of the ministers at Dusseldorf, to apply to the grand-
duchy all the French legislation which was capable of trans-
plantation. The draft decrees concerted in the Council of
State at Dusseldorf (frequently at the request of the minister
in Paris) were tested and amended in the capital of the Empire
before they were permitted to pass into law. The decrees of
the Emperor were executed without delay. There was not
a clerk or an usher in the law courts of Berg who did not
receive his nomination from Napoleon, and the ambitious
lawyer who wished to rise wrote a manual of French civil
procedure, and bowed his head to the study of Pothier.

The condition of the agricultural poor previous to the
French occupation was no doubt in many places deplorable
enough. Serfage was prevalent, feudal dues were numerous
and corvees heavy. In some places, however, the hard outlines
of the law had been softened by custom, by administrative
ordinance, or by philanthropic feeling3. We are assured by

1 Rapport sur P administration de la justice dans le Grand-Duche de Berg
pendant tan 1812 ; A. F. iv. 1834.

2 A. F. iv. 1833.

3 Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, i. 110.

202 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

the proprietors of Munster that it was easier to find tenants
where the tenure was servile, than where the tenure was
free. It was true that the serf in Munster could not cut wood
for any purpose but firing, save with his lord's leave, that his
'colonate' was subject to mortuary dues and admission dues,
but in revenge his tenure was fixed, and he had the right to
bequeath it to his lawful descendants born upon the colonate.
Serfage in such a case was apt to be less hard upon the
individual serf than upon the economic development of the
country. It arrested the free circulation of labour and stereo-
typed agrarian methods1.

No question excited the interest of the Council of Dusseldorf
so much as the proposed abolition of serfage and feudalism.
A society of somewhat conservative German lawyers and pro-
prietors found themselves directly menaced, in a most sensitive
quarter, by the application of French revolutionary precedents,
and the fiscal interests of the domain were enlisted on the side
of the landowning class. The problem had already been settled
on the lines of compromise by the Westphalian government
before it engaged the attention of the Grand-Ducal Council.
But even Westphalian moderation was outdone in the scheme
which was first presented to the Council by Sethe, the president
of the commission appointed to study the question. 'It is
a recognized fact,1 said that cautious jurist, 'that the heritages
possessed at present by serfs originally belonged of full right to
those whom we now call lords,' and it followed that nearly all
the dues paid or services performed by the peasant were the
result of explicit contract and the exchange for value received.
It was argued that it would be unjust to abolish without compen-
sation to the landlord, and this, as we shall see, was the principle
adopted in Westphalia. But while in Westphalia all heriots
and all labour services of an indeterminate or personal character
were deemed to have originated in servitude, Sethe held that in
the grand-duchy they were the fruit of contract. A com-
mission was sent to Munster, the home of the large proprietor
and the serf, to consult with a local committee of lawyers,
administrators, and landowners, and the Council at Dusseldorf
laid down for its guidance the aims and principles which should

1 A. F. iv. 1837.

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG 203

be kept in view. These were the abolition of all personal
servitude, the consolidation of proprietary rights, and a com-
plete indemnity to the lord for the loss of non-servile dues
and services \ The centre of interest was now shifted to the
exact discrimination between those services which were and
those which were not to be abolished without compensation.
The Mlinster commission took a view extremely favourable to
the landlord, but the Council was more liberal to the serf, and
the imperial decree of December 12, 1808, which was con-
structed upon the Council's draft, was distinguished by a spirit
of impartiality and justice.

The main provisions of this important act of legislation were
as follows : — Serfdom and the colonate were declared to be
abolished, and with them went four classes of service : forced
labour in the lord's house, dues upon manumission, mortuary
dues save where they had been paid from colonates, and lastly,
all personal corvees and transport services. These, being deemed
servile, were abolished without compensation. On the other
hand, the ' dues resulting from a colonate ' were abolished
subject to compensation, the scale of which was fixed. The
peasant was given power to purchase immunity from seigneurial
dues, and the lord was forced to sell, if he was offered a
hundred francs capital for four francs revenue. The ' colon ' or
villein was to own the timber on his land, and whenever there
was a complication of rights, as for instance where both lord and
peasant had rights in the same wood or pasture, there was to be
a division for the triple purpose of simplifying tenure, of
emancipating the individual, and of assisting agricultural
development. The early ideal of the French Revolution — a free
peasant proprietary — had not lost its momentum, but it was now
allied with a greater respect for inherited and vested interests,
and supplemented by the institution of certain privileged entails
or majorats.

The subtle distinction between services founded on contract
and services originating in serfdom escaped the notice of the
peasant. ' We are free from Hand- and Spanndienst,' they
cried, and * Hand- and Spanndienst , they refused to pay. Some
recalcitrant peasants of Mark were sued by their lords, and the
1 Staatsraths-Akten, Diisseldorf Archives.

204 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

judgement went for the plaintiffs. Then money was subscribed,
and Johann Giesbert Alef of Westerfilde, provided with a
petition, travelled to Paris in the spring of 1811 as the peasants'*
orator. For six months the youth loitered in the streets of the
French capital, watching an opportunity to present his paper to
the great man. At last, on July 9, the moment came, and as
the Emperor and Empress were stepping into their carriage
at St. Cloud, Alef sprang forward with his petition. The
Emperor read the paper, and then, with Louise for interpreter,
began to cross-examine the rustic petitioner, pouring in ques-
tions, volley upon volley, for the space of two hours while
the horses were champing at their bits. In the end, another
interview was appointed for the morning of the eleventh, but
when Alef and a bilingual friend arrived at the palace they
found that the Court had flitted to Trianon. To Trianon
then the two hastened, and were announced to His Imperial
Majesty. But the most propitious moment had flown. His
Imperial Majesty sent back word that he had not time to
master the question (being now deep in the fortifications of
Danzig), but that justice should be done to the peasants.
The matter was, however, transferred to competent hands.
On the very same evening Alef was summoned before Count
Merlin, the procureur general of the Court of Cassation,
and M. Daniels, who translated the Civil Code into German.
After much questioning the two lawyers drew up a report
which was forwarded to Beugnot, and was made the basis of
a decree issued September 13, 1811. How this decree was re-
garded by the peasants may be seen by the following petition,
drawn up by a deputation of peasants from the arrondissement
of Dortmund on October 23, 1811 : —

6 Your Imperial Majesty has deigned in his wisdom and his
justice to declare himself by his decree of September 13 the
father of the agriculturists, who have been oppressed for
several centuries. Our chains are broken ; we are made like
unto the other subjects of your Majesty, and shall rejoice with
them in equal rights. Our hearts are kindled to the most pro-
found gratitude for the Great Man destined by Providence
to create a new and better order of things, and we and our
most distant descendants will not cease to bless the memory

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG 205

of your Majesty. However great may be our adversaries,
however powerful may be their efforts to prevent the entire
execution of this beneficent decree, we are persuaded that your
Majesty will cause respect to be paid to a decision dictated
by wisdom and love for his faithful subjects. May Heaven
pour down blessings upon our benefactor and his august
dynasty V

The abolition without indemnity of fiefs, feudal succession,
and feudal services by the imperial decree of January 1 1, 1809,
and the abolition of seigneurial jurisdiction on December 17,
1811, gave an impulse to the subdivision of property, which is
said to have had the most salutary effects upon the agriculture
of the duchy. Numerous clearances, improved drainage, and
better crops were the result of the French legislation, and of
the stimulus imparted to the general life by the consuming
energy of Napoleon, And no less important was the decree
of March 31, 1809, which permitted the marriage of noble with
peasant, and peasant with burgess, sweeping away in one
general and comprehensive clause the invidious and caste-like
distinctions of the Prussian Code 2.

There are some countries which are by nature pre-eminently
designed for a policy of free trade, countries which have a
differential advantage in the production of commodities which
are in general demand, and depend for their prosperity upon
the cheap acquisition of raw materials on the one hand and
upon the ready acceptance of their manufactures by foreign
consumers on the other. Such a country was the Grand-Duchy
of Berg. It was neither economically self-sufficient, nor were
its products confined to the home market. On the contrary,
it had the reputation of being one of the most active raanu-

1 A. F. iv. 1837. According to Beugnot's calculation the interpre-
tative decree of Sept. 13, 1811, further defining- dues and services of feudal
origin, was so favourable to the peasants, that the Crown domains alone
would be compelled to restore them 600,000 francs for rents, &c, unlaw-
fully levied since 1808. Beugnot to Roederer, Nov. 8, 1811.

2 ' Nous avons d'ailleurs considere que le code prussien en definissant la basse
classe de la bourgeoisie se trouvait dans une opposition absolue avec la nature
des choses et nos institutions qui font du service militaire un patrimoine
commun d'honneur auquel tous les citoyens sont egalement appeles.' — Staatsraths-
Akten, Diisseldorf Archives.

206 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

facturing centres in Germany. It was, so to speak, the
Birmingham and Sheffield, the Manchester and Leeds of Ger-
many rolled into one. The excellence of the Remscheid steel
was acknowledged throughout the world. In the immense
pastures of Buenos Ayres it was with shears ' made in Germany '
at Remscheid that the flocks were shorn. Not a vat of wine
or brandy but was bound with the steel from the mines of the
County of Mark ; not a vessel braved the ocean without a Rem-
scheid girding. It was a merchant of Remscheid who set up
the first forge in North America ; a detachment of Remscheid
men started the iron works of Silesia and South Prussia, and
it was to Remscheid that Catherine II addressed herself for
skilled pioneers to exploit the resources of her Russian mines.
The wire, the needles, the ploughshares of the grand-duchy
were exported chiefly to Spain and Portugal, but also to other
European markets. Silesian and Spanish wool fed a prosperous
cloth manufacture, and some hundred thousand families were
supported by the industries of iron and steel, cloth and wool,
cotton and silk. Before the war began it was calculated that
an export trade was done in these articles to the extent of
60,000,000 francs, a small figure enough now, but at that time
equal to one-fifth of the total export trade of France \

All this prosperity was absolutely ruined by the continental
blockade, and by the fiscal system of the French Empire. The
ironmasters were unable to send consignments to their depots
at New York and Charlestown, and the trade with Spain and
Portugal utterly ceased. The export trade, which stood at
55,000,000 francs in 1807, declined to 30,000,000 in 1808, to
18,000,000 in 1811, to 11,000,000 in 1812. It might have
been thought that provinces compelled to lose all their sea-
borne trade, owing to the imperial wars, would at any rate
have been partially compensated by the fiscal hospitality of
France herself. But the Grand-Duchy of Berg was treated by
France with as much jealousy and aversion as if she had been
an enemy. Her cottons were forced to pay a heavy duty at the
French frontier, on the pretext that otherwise they would under-

1 Memoire sur lesfabriques et manufactures du Grand-Duche de Berg, par
J. G. Diederichs, maire de Remscheid ; A. F. iv. 1839.

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG 207

sell the French article, and that they laboured under the
disadvantage of resembling too closely the cotton goods of
Oldham or Manchester. It had been hoped, among the coal-
owners of the Ruhr department, that the coal mines of the
duchy would profit by the prohibition of English imports into
Holland, but a decree of January 6, 1811, imposed prohibitive
import duties upon the Dutch frontier. ' Every new extension
of France brought desolation to the heart of the inhabitants of
the grand-duchy."* There was a general desire among the
manufacturers to be annexed to the French Empire. ' Hors la
reunion f they wrote, 'nous avons peu aVespoir? Death or emigra-
tion were the alternatives. If the annexation were not per-
mitted, most of the captains of industry had resolved to migrate
to the left bank, so as to obtain free access to the French
consumers. ' Two- thirds of our manufacturers,' ran the petition,
* will go to France, the rest to Russia and Austria V Nor did
the serious calamity which had befallen the industry of the
duchy escape the notice of the government. A report of
November 15, 1812, stated that the grand-duchy had lost by
emigration, in the current year, twelve or fifteen manufacturers
of cotton stuffs or hardware, and five or six thousand workmen
of different trades 2. * Your Excellency,' wrote Beugnot to
Roederer on November 20, 1812, 'knows as well as I do the
financial conditions of the grand-duchy. It is clear that all
the taxes upon general property fall in value day by day.
Experience has betrayed almost all the hopes of the budget
of 1812. I predict nothing less sad for 1813 if the Rhine, the
Elbe, and the Weser remain closed to the exportations of the
grand-duchy. I even predict its approaching ruin, if it is
insensibly led to produce nothing and to manufacture nothing
save for its own consumption 3.'

Yet these uncomfortable facts were not allowed to influence
the course of policy. ' There is no languor,' said the Emperor
(January 1, 1813), wilfully shutting his eyes to the truth ; ' the

1 In 1811 an influential deputation of commercial men went to Paris to
petition for the incorporation of the grand-duchy in the French Empire,
as the only means of rescuing their fatherland from its precarious position.
Goecke, Das Grossherzogthum Berg, 77.

2 A. F. iv. 1226. s A. F. iv. 1839.

208 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Berg people made a considerable sale at the Leipzig fair last
year1.' On May 8, 1813, an imperial decree was issued com-
manding the confiscation of all the colonial goods which were
to be found in the Grand-Duchy of Berg. It was represented
that the total amount of these goods did not exceed the value
of 800,000 francs, that they had all been bought in France and
had already paid heavy duty. 'The execution of the decree
would,' said Beugnot, ' reduce seven or eight thousand workmen
to emigrate and beg, ruin the cotton and lace manufactures, and
discourage all future importations of colonial raw material from
France.' This prognosis was correct. On May 14, 1813, Count
Nesselrode was able to report to Roederer upon the effects of
the execution of the decree. ' Only last week,' he wrote, ' three
houses of Elberfeld closed, and a fourth, which employed more
than 200 workmen, did the same the day before yesterday.
Two others have announced to their workmen that they will
wind up at the end of the week. Such is the report which the
commissioner of police at Elberfeld made me yesterday — a
sensible man, who assures me that in less than ten days all the
houses which make cotton must necessarily follow that example V
Sudden commercial ruin generally leads to crime and disorder,
and in the manufacturing cantons of the grand-duchy thefts
and burglaries increased to an alarming extent during the
year 1813. * It is to be remarked,' wrote the Minister of the
Interior, 'in the reports of the mayors of rural cantons such
as Remscheid, Kronenberg, &c., that the native workmen are
taking to presenting themselves at the end of the week before
the houses of manufacturers who live in isolation to ask for
succour. It is true that they behave with decency, and express
the most affectionate gratitude when aid is afforded them. But
these visits are made in bands of ten individuals or more, and
assistance is demanded with so firm a countenance that no
manufacturer has yet had the courage to refuse it 3.'

It is needless to accumulate further evidence of the ruinous
effects of the French connection upon the commerce and manu-
facture of Berg.

In the complacent retrospect of Count Beugnot the unpleasant

1 A. F. iv. 1839. 2 A. F. iv. 1854.

s Nesselrode to Roederer, June 25, 1813 ; A. F. iv. 1854.

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG 209

facts, upon which he so honourably insisted at the time, are
completely effaced. We learn how the manufactures of the
duchy progressed, being favoured by the opening of the Italian
market and by some privileges procured by the Emperor for
the merchants of Berg at the fair of Leipzig. The discovery of
coal at Ottweiler and Oberdries in 1809 is regarded as a happy
compensation for the losses occasioned by the great floods which
signalized that year. Yet the broad fact remains that France
ruined the manufacture and commerce of this little State.
Instead of encouraging the importation of raw material by low
duties and drawbacks, she discouraged it by high tariffs and
confiscations. While the mill-owner was liable to have his raw
cotton seized in Berg, and his manufactured cotton seized at
Leghorn, the old exit by way of Amsterdam was closed, partly
by the maritime war and partly by the Dutch custom lines. An
open market in France was denied, and yet this was the only
satisfactory compensation which France could have offered.
The policy was wilfully persisted in, against the light, against
the reiterated reports, recommendations, and draft decrees of
the men in power at Dusseldorf. And for all this industrial
and commercial loss the French could offer no recompense. The
mining engineers of the grand-duchy had received their training
either in the celebrated school of Berlin or in the mines of Silesia,
and the French specialists had nothing but admiration for the
order, the skill, and the economy with which the mines were
worked I, Nor was there any department of manufacture which
was assisted to improve its technical processes by the French
occupation.

The visit of the Emperor had stirred a great problem of
educational statesmanship. It was, perhaps, a natural assumption
that the Germans, who were so behindhand in the arts of ad-
ministration, would be equally inferior to the French in educa-
tional methods. The dream of a new university founded in
a German city by French statesmen, managed upon superior
French models, and attracting to its service all the talents of
Germany, was grateful to the pride of the Emperor and his

1 Rapport general sur les mines } usines et salines du Grand-duche de Berg
par Vingenieur en chef des mines et usines de t Empire Francais ; A. F.
iv. 1225.

FISHER P

210 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

servants. A connected system of State education, penetrating,
tolerant, and secular, and the general diffusion of instruction in
the French language, promised to satisfy equally the twin French
tastes for civilization and ascendency. Yet Beugnot upon
further examination was bound to admit that the primary
schools in the grand-duchy were upon a better footing than
they were in France, that ' a more considerable mass of illumina-
tion was spread among the inhabitants of the country,' and
that there was not a parish which, if it had to communicate
directly with the Imperial Commissioner, could not find some
farmer to speak or write with tolerable fluency in Latin1.
It is possible that the secondary education was not equally
good, and that the establishment of three lycees at Dusseldorf,
Dortmund, and Dillenburg, represented a distinct gain to
the grand-duchy. But the University of Dusseldorf was never
destined to be more than a fabric of paper. The budgets
of the grand-duchy, overcharged with military expenditure,
could not spare more than the most paltry sums to education,
and a contribution of so small an amount as 30,000 francs from
the public treasury to the endowment of the new university
was too heavy an addition to the educational charges to be
risked. The amiable Beugnot would have wished to organize
the University of Dusseldorf 'after the principles generally
admitted in Germany,'' adding, however, an Academy of Fine
Arts to correct the austerity of the Teutonic curriculum. But
the order came from Paris that the French model must be strictly
adhered to, and a decree was concerted between Nesselrode and
Roederer to give effect to this injunction. There were to be
five faculties — Theology, Law, Medicine, Mathematical and
Physical Science, and Letters. There were to be two Professors
of Theology, one Catholic and one Protestant, and three
Professors of Letters. The endowment of the university from
all sources was to amount to 114,000 francs. The professors

1 Beugnot to Roederer, Jan. 17, 1813 ; A. F. iv. 1838. ' Je doute,'
he concludes, ( qiiun administrateur allemand, transports sur quelque point
de la France que ce soit, trouvdt matiere a une telle remarque.' In the
Department of the Ems there were 230 primary schools, one for every
800 inhabitants. Notices statistiques sur le departement de FEim ; Affaires
etrangeres, Corr. pol. : Berg, 14.

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG 211

were to be named by the Emperor upon the designation of the
Minister of the Interior, and every year one or two deans or
professors of the university were to be designated by the minister
to visit all the schools of the duchy. It was a penurious, pro-
visional, unpromising scheme. A German critic remarked that
the university, if so constituted, would only be a university of
the third rank. While the professors were too few, the curriculum
was too narrow. The science of Political Economy, for instance,
though ardently pursued at all the chief German universities,
was banished under the Napoleonic regime as a dangerous
heresy. It was pointed out that there was no provision for
the teaching of speculative and transcendental philosophy, a
branch of inquiry peculiarly congenial to the German tempera-
ment and intellect. Chairs of Forestry and of Administrative
Law were now recognized appendages of a German university
system, but they were absent here, nor could the whole field
of Theology, dogmatic and historical, be covered adequately
by two professors. * En AllernagneJ remarked Nesselrode to
Napoleon, * ilfaut payer les savants en poids &or? It was not
only the gold which was wanting to this paper university, but,
what was far more essential than gold, a comprehensive view of
human needs in the field of education '.

The religious policy of the administration was formed upon
the broad principles of tolerant Erastianism which were
characteristic of the Napoleonic system. The concordat was
introduced, and the ecclesiastical corporations were suppressed,
with due regard to existing interests. By a decree of November
12, 1808, all property belonging to religious communities other
than those devoted to educational and charitable purposes was
henceforth to be administered by the Regie, a department of the
domains, and more than one otiose but harmless chapter of
aristocratic ladies was forced to wind up its charming and
fastidious existence 2. The Catholics of Berg, the Lutherans

1 The criticisms of Professor Sartorius of Gottingen (Oct. 23, 1812) are
to be found in A. F. iv. 1838. The comments of Count Nesselrode might
have been written by Napoleon himself. They breathe an insolent con-
tempt for physiocrats, metaphysicians, and ecclesiastics.

2 The Chapter of Elten, the revenue of which exceeded 44,000 francs,
was only open to such princesses and countesses of the Empire as could

p2

212 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

of Mark, and the Calvinists of Nassau-Siegen were put on an
equal footing, and the minority in any parish was expressly
relieved from the obligation of paying Church dues to the
confession of the majority, on the ground that * everything must
be averted which can give to one or other confession the appear-
ance of a governing Church l« It had been the usage in Berg
for controversial sermons to be preached at certain high festivals,
and as these discourses were said to abound in indecent in-
vective against the Protestant faith, they were forbidden by
the government. A similar bridle was placed upon the zeal or
intolerance of the other side, and at the request of the Catholic
clergy the eightieth article, denouncing the mass, was ordered
to be omitted from a forthcoming edition of the greater Heidel-
berg Catechism 2.

While the Reglements Organiques secured the subservience
of the Catholic clergy to the State, the bonds which bound the
Protestant communities were no less strict. Organization,
doctrine, ritual, discipline, patronage, were all shaped and con-
trolled by the Head of the State. A Calvinist synod could not
assemble without government authority, or execute a synodal
decision which had not received government approval. The
Protestant festivals were regulated by decree, and the Emperor
might have the satisfaction of reflecting that on the first
Sunday of October every Lutheran or Calvinist pastor in the
Grand-Duchy of Berg was thanking a bountiful Creator for
a copious or a niggardly harvest. It was intended to refuse
ordination to any Protestant applicant who had not undergone
a determinate course of study in the University of Dusseldorf,
and seminaries were to be instructed to train up a Catholic
clergy in the Christian and imperial religion. A decree of
January 1, 1812, ordered all young citizens of the grand-duchy,
who were receiving their education abroad, to quit their schools
and universities, and to obtain the remainder of their education

show seventy-four quarterings. The ladies were not bound to celibacy,
nor were they compelled to reside there for more than three months
during their lives. A. F. iv. 1865.

1 Cultus, Dusseldorf Archives.

2 A. F. iv. 1838 ; Neue Intelligenz-Nachrichten fur das Sieg-Departement,
Feb. 29, 1812.

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG 213

either in the grand-duchy or in France. The strictness of
this rule was so far relaxed on January 7, 1818, that young
ecclesiastics of Berg were permitted to study at the seminary of
Cologne, but a regulation which prevented a German youth
from attending the classes of Halle and Gottingen, in order
that he might imbibe knowledge in Diisseldorf or Paris, was
not framed in the true interests of education1.

In course of time the grand-duchy assumed the air of
a French province. The administration was, after the French
manner, divided into seven principal sections — customs, registra-
tion and stamps, posts, waters, forests and mines, direct con-
tributions, indirect contributions, domains. A Council of State
of ten members, three ministers, and the Imperial Commissioner,
formed the central government. The French coinage and the
French tariffs were introduced, and the French forms of ad-
ministration were, says Beugnot, ' as well understood as in their
native country and better respected.''

6 Nowhere, perhaps,' proceeds the same authority, ' was the
control of expenditure better or more surely established. We
aimed at making a model administration, and we hoped that we
might be permitted to publish its history. I had already occupied
myself with the statistics of the grand-duchy. M. Roederer
had undertaken the development of the theory, and the third
part would have been filled by tables indicating the best methods
of execution. Time failed us, but some special subjects furnished
matter for reports which may still be consulted with advantage.
Among others, I mention works on the origin of the colonates
or villein tenures in the portions of Germany which border on
the Rhine, on the mortgage system, on coinage, and on lotteries.'

The memoirs of Beugnot, despite their prevailing tone of
complacency, do not fail to indicate the weak points of the
situation. It is clear that considerable uneasiness was caused
by the decree which, conferring the duchy upon the Prince-
Royal of Holland, seemed to indicate an annexation at some
future time to that heavily indebted kingdom 2. Again, during

1 A. F. iv. 1838.

2 A bulletin of March 1809 says that the appointment of Prince Louis
Napoleon was popular, but too much credit should not be attached to this.
A. F. iv. 1225.

214 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

the Austrian war and the German troubles of 1809, the gravest
apprehension was felt by the French Commissioner, who was
aware that Major Schill had intelligences in the old County of
Mark, and that many of the nobles of the duchy, among them
the sons of Count Nesselrode, his colleague, were serving in the
Austrian army. So critical seemed the situation, that Count
Beugnot actually took upon himself to falsify the bulletin
announcing the battle of Essling, a piece of foolish impudence
and a vain precaution. As a matter of fact, it may be doubted
whether the danger was ever great in 1809. In the spring
there had been a tiny agitation in the County of Mark. The
president and the syndic wished to summon the Estates, but
when the Imperial Commissioner gave out that if that body met,
it would be dispersed as an unlawful assembly and its members
arrested, the agitation withered under the threat, and all
relapsed into quiet \ Nevertheless it was remarked that there
were many desertions in the country, and an official report
opines that it would be imprudent to employ the troops of the
Duchy of Berg in Germany, at least for their first campaigns 2.
But although the Austrian sympathies of Mark and Minister
were unconcealed, there was to be no rash heroism in Berg.
How many peasant revolts, national risings, and deep con-
spiracies and hopeless causes have not been led by priests,
fanatics, and men of religion ! In Scotland, in Ireland, in Spain,
fin the Tyrol, in Arabia, prophetic and priestly agencies have
often played a decisive part in the crisis of a great emotion.
But in the Duchy of Berg, the Churches were not cast in the
spirit of the Scotch Covenanters or the Spanish priests. The
German religious temperament, naturally tranquil, introspective,
and resigned, was framed by history to long habits of submission
to the powers of the earth. The clergy of Berg were no ex-
ception to this rule, and in the pulpits both of town and
country no occasion was lost of preaching obedience to the
government of Napoleon 3.

As a member of the Confederation of the Rhine, the Grand-
Duchy of Berg was bound to furnish a military contingent. This
was at first fixed at 5,000 men, or one-tenth of the population,

1 A. F. iv. 1225. 2 Ibid.

8 Bulletin de police, March 2, 1809 ; A. F. iv. 1226.

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG 215

but with the territorial acquisitions of the duchy, and the
growing military appetite of Napoleon, the blood- tax was steadily
increased. A decree of May 13, 1807, introduced conscription,
and since the population of the duchy had been increased by more
than 3,000,000 by the union of Minister and Mark, the contingent
was raised to 7,000. In the budget of 1808 we find that 4,459
men were paid for by the State. By August 29, 1808, the
number had risen to 7,200. On June 25, 1811, it stands at
8,180. On October 12, 1811, the Emperor orders two new
regiments of Lancers, or 1,200 men. Then comes the Russian
disaster, and the last great rally of imperial France and her
German allies. To this also Berg must contribute 1. A brigade
of cavalry 2,500 strong, an infantry regiment 1,680 strong,
a company of horse artillery and eight field-pieces are demanded
instantaneously. It may easily be imagined that the conscrip-
tion which provides these victims to perish by hundreds on the
parching sierras of Spain, the snow-swept plains of Russia, or
in the great butcheries of Central Germany, is regarded with
growing aversion by this quiet home-loving people. *■ A father
who has six or seven boys bitterly deplores the departure of one
of them. The mother cannot tear herself from them, and every
departure of conscripts is marked by scenes of great and un-
affected violence, but just as every virtue pushed to excess is
very near to a vice, these tender fathers and mothers have the
barbarous cowardice to induce their children to mutilate them-
selves, and even help them to do so. Indeed the number of
pollice truncati is so considerable that one is, so to speak, obliged
to avert one's eyes.' This is from an official report of March
1809 2. Another report of the same date, while noting that
the conscription is already established in the rural districts,
alludes to the 'invincible repugnance'' with which it was
regarded by the industrial classes in the towns3. But when

1 Memoire historique sur la conscription dans le Grand-duche de Berg ;
A. F. iv. 1873. The Feuille de travail of Nov. 15, 1812, states that 5,870
men and fourteen guns were with the Grand Army in Russia, while
800 were in Catalonia. The total effective of the Berg forces was reckoned,
Oct. 1, 1812, at 8,048. Feuille de travail, Nov. 11, 1812 ; A. F. iv.
1226.

2 A. F. iv. 1225.

3 Bulletin de police, March 2, 1809 ; A. F. iv. 1225.

216 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

once the recruiting machine had been started, it went on
rolling over family feeling and love of home with a momentum
to which it seemed idle to offer resistance. In 1810 there
appears to be no difficulty in raising the men. In 1811 the
country is reported 'submissive and quiet, the conscription
easy.'* The annual quota of 1,850 men goes with the rest to
bleed or starve in Russia in 1812. But in the next year
patience had reached its term. There were loud murmurs,
there was resistance. An English dragoon who was in Dussel-
dorf at the time describes how the order came down to
that city, that the Grand Army must be supplied with a rein-
forcement of 5,000 infantry and 500 cavalry. The names of
all the male inhabitants of the duchy were already in the
keeping of the authorities. Lots were drawn, and the dragoons
sallied out in every direction to secure their prizes. ■ It was
shocking,"* writes George Farmer, 'to see the poor wretches
brought in, twenty or thirty in a string, tied round the neck
with one cord, the end of which was fastened to a mounted
policeman's saddle.' To attempt escape was hazardous, if not
futile. The * conscriptable matter,' as Napoleon had come to
term it, was confined in a barrack, and strictly guarded by
tried veterans. If a conscript managed to break the barrier,
the authorities did not even care to look for him. A party of
soldiers was quartered upon the house of his parents, or else the
father was seized, thrown into prison, and kept there till his son
had rejoined the standard. The method was found effectual.
Within the knowledge of George Farmer there was not a single
runaway who was not by this method recovered for the army \

This was not all. Convenient high-roads traversed the
Grand-Duchy of Berg, leading either to Hanover, or to Magde-
burg, or to Cassel. French armies passed through the country
on their way to the German and Russian wars ; French
soldiery was quartered on the people. The food, the lodging,
the hospital accommodation, the fodder for the horses, the

1 The Memoirs of George Farmer, 11th Light Dragoons, ed. G. R. Gleig,
i. 285 ff. ; and cf. Instruction sur Vemploi des garnisaires, A. F. iv. 1873.
The prefect cannot, without special authorization, place more than four
'garnisaires' with one individual, or quarter them upon one house for
more than one month.

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG 217

wine for the officers and men came from the purses of the
inhabitants. • I am informed,' writes Beugnot, February 23,
1810, 'that 12,000 men are to occupy the duchy. I am to
prepare hospital accommodation for 1,200. I read in the
instructions of the intendant general the positive instruction
to nourish the troops imposed on the inhabitants, and I see but
a small hope of reimbursement.'' The food of a common soldier
came to two francs a day, that of an officer to six or seven
francs or even more 1. ' It is evident,' wrote the prefect of the
Ems department, August 11, 1810, ' that in a poor country like
this few inhabitants can sustain this charge for long 2. Indeed,
a little arithmetic shows us that if the force were to remain for
a year, the charge would exceed the total annual revenue of
the duchy 3.'

Before the French occupation the taxation had been light,
and the aims of government modest and restricted in Berg and
Cleves. * Prince Joachim,' wrote Agar* May 1, 1806, ' can only
expect a revenue of 1,700,000 francs.' ' I send you our budget,'
wrote the Prince to the Emperor, March 28, 1806; 'your
Majesty will see it leaves me nothing V In 1808, as we know,
Mark, Miinster, and Tecklenburg were added to the duchy.
Here, too, the taxation had been light. Daru reckoned the net
revenue of the new provinces at 1,219,441 francs 46 cen-
times, but they had been occupied and drained by a French
military occupation, and they were ceded subject to conditions
which impaired their immediate value. The French Emperor
claimed arrears of revenue, half the domains, and a war con-
tribution. It was eventually settled that the arrears and war
contribution together were to amount to 1,523,527 francs
89 centimes. The imperial share of the domains was estimated
at 250,000 francs a year. It follows from this, that if the
fiscal system were unchanged, all the receipts of the first year,

1 A. F. iv. 1225, and cf. Beugnot to Roederer, June 14, 1810, A. F.
iv. 1873.

2 Pick, Monatsschrift fur rheinisch-westfalische Geschichtsforschung und
Alterthumskunde, 1877, 105 ff.

3 The general receipts of the duchy were 7,840,733 francs in 1811 ; A, F.
iv. 1226.

4 A. F. iv. 1225.

218 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

and some of the receipts of the second year would be consumed
in liquidating the debt to the Emperor, while there would be
a permanent annual deduction of revenue equal to about
a fifth of the whole amount1.

The receipts were not unchanged. In the old provinces and
in the new, the French fiscal system was introduced — a tax on
land and movables, a stamp tax, a patent tax, the centimes
additionnels for local government. There were stringent custom
duties ; the municipal excise duties, which were variable, were
exchanged for a subvention which was fixed, and fixed, some
said, unduly high. The figures in the budget mount up
ambitiously. We might expect some 3,000,000 francs. But in
1808 the public charges stand at 6,910,000, exclusive of the
expense of keeping up the princely palace and paying the princely
revenue. The receipts mount sympathetically ; in 1808 the
general receipts stand at 7,840,733 francs, the budget of the
Prince at 4,050,000. In 1813 the general receipts alone mount
to 992,257,173. In short, the revenue is more than tripled.

Of this swollen budget something between one-third and one-
half was spent upon war. In 1808, 37,000 francs were devoted
to public instruction, and more than 2,500,000 to the army.
In 1813 the department of the Minister of the Interior received
1,559,000 francs, while the Minister of War swallowed 4,334,000,
or nearly three times as much 2. With such a military charge
imposed upon it, what hope was there that the State chest
would be able adequately to meet the claims of public instruc-
tion, which (so far as its higher branches went) was, according
to the Count of Mosburg, ' in an afflicting state of decadence,''
or those of justice, which demanded something better than
a mere living wage for the occupants of the judicial bench ?
Then too, even assuming that the revenue of the old regime
had been unduly light, was it wise for a new administration,
would it be wise for any administration to triple its budget
in five years ? We know how delicate are the problems of
incidence, how difficult it is equitably to diffuse any sudden
addition to the volume of taxation. It is not then surprising if,
in the reports of the prefects of the grand-duchy, we overhear

1 A. F. iv. 1225.

2 A. F. iv. 1842, 1863 A and B.

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG 219

the murmurs of the taxpayer. The direct contribution is too
high, the subvention in lieu of municipal excise is too high, the
increased import duty on salt is a hardship, the customs are
vexatious, and the French custom-house officers insolent1. In
1811 there were more than 600 complaints lodged against the
incidence of taxation by the Department of the Rhine alone 2.
The grievance of the customs was very real. One prefect, after
alluding in general' terms to the vexations of the douaniers,
speaks of * sudden and unexpected seizures of merchandise, made
in a tumultuous manner without any of the forms which the
French laws have introduced to guarantee the rights of peace-
able citizens."' Another mentions that the douanes have oc-
casioned a great diminution in the cattle and transit trade.
Against the douaniers, who are frequently assisted by the
soldiery, it is next to impossible to obtain justice. A circular
was sent round to the law courts explaining that, according to
French law, an employe of the customs cannot be sued for acts
committed in discharge of his functions, except in virtue of an
authorization given by the Director-General of the Customs3.
The merchant whose consignment of goods from Hamburg has
been seized upon the frontier must first seek this permission,
and then, if he is lucky enough to get it, lodge his complaint
before the Council of Prizes, which sits at Paris, 150 leagues
away, a court whose laws and procedure are utterly unknown to
him. Rather than face the risk and expense he will sit at
home, brooding over the wrong that is done him. And so, in
1813, when the storm ultimately bursts, the custom-house men
have to fly for their lives.

Yet it must not be imagined that the government was
insensible or remiss. Beugnot and his colleagues were re-
sponsible neither for the army, nor for the customs line, nor
for the sequestration of half the domains for the payment of
pensions to the relatives and generals of the Emperor, nor
for the war contribution. They were forced to discover new

1 Report of the Prefect of the Sieg, Nov. 20, 1810 ; Pick, Monatsschrift,
1877.

2 Feuille de travail, Nov. 15, 1812 ; A. F. iv. 1226.

8 Beugnot to Nesselrode, Nov. 18, 1810 ; Staatsraths-Akten, Diisseldorf
Archives.

220 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

fiscal resources, and they took pains that the extra burdens
should fall equitably upon the taxpayers l. The ugly symptoms
were reported to Paris, mollified perhaps by the spirit of
deference or optimism, but nevertheless patently ugly. It was
on the whole an honest, industrious, and deserving administra-
tion, zealous in the cause of law, of administrative order, of
scientific and sanitary progress, anxious yet without bustle or
iconoclasm to make of the grand-duchy a pattern State ; and
if it failed to content the inhabitants, the cause of this failure
lay quite outside its own sphere of action and motive.

There were murmurs in 1810, but the country was quiet and
submissive. Trade was dying, taxes were rising, the regiment
of Berg was being decimated in Spain, but the country did not
stir. In 1811, when Napoleon came to Diisseldorf, it was
noticed that his reception would have been cold had it not been
for the plaudits of his suite and of the French residents. Only
for a lad of genius, Heinrich Heine, was the old glamour still
untarnished. * The nobles,' writes Beugnot, ' have the esprit
prussien ; they are " free-thinkers " indifferent in morals and
in politics, " anti-Gallican " in fact2.' A year later there are
deeds as well as murmurs ; a large emigration of workmen,
then a sensible diminution of the transit trade ; then an
opposition to the French municipal regime3. The Emperor
determined to apply the tobacco monopoly to the grand-
duchy. It was in vain that Beugnot protested, showing
by official figures that the smuggling was so great that the tax
was not worth the trouble to collect. ' It is not,' replied the
Emperor, 'a question of your duchy but of France. I know
well that you will gain nothing by it; it is possible that you
may lose, and what matter if France obtain a profit 4 ? ' To
enforce this unpopular monopoly, to burn English wares, and
to screw every penny out of the country in order to assist the
shattered finances of France, a new set of administrators was

1 In 1812 the complaints of unfair incidence are greatly diminished
in number. Feuille de travail, Nov. 15, 1812 ; A. F. iv. 1226.

2 Apercu general de la situation du Grand-duche, 1 aout 1811 ; A. F.
iv. 1226.

3 Feuille de travail, Nov. 15, 1812 ; A. F. iv. 1226.

4 Ibid.

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG 221

sent into the country. The populace rose in revolt. The
tobacco was detestable ; the Germans swore they would never
smoke it, burnt the tobacco shops, thrashed the employes, and
formed bands to resist this new form of tyranny. On January
22 and 23, 1813, there were seditious meetings of workmen
at Ronsdorf and Solingen, with cries of • Hurrah for Alexander
and the Cossacks ! ' In February formidable riots broke out in
the Department of the Sieg, which had to be quelled by
soldiery. Plague, military commissions, the burden of retreat-
ing and advancing armies, contributed still further to disturb
the last four months of the duchy's precarious existence.
Crimes of violence sensibly increased1. The magistrates and
the juries refused to condemn even in the teeth of the plainest
evidence 2. • There was a coalition,1 wrote Beugnot, ' which
extended from the heads of the government to the com-
missioners of police,' against France, the conscription, and the
blockade3. On November 2 the Cossacks appeared at Lipp-
stadt and Dillenburg, and the Imperial Commissioner was
forced to 'give his departure the colour of a momentary
absence V And so, on November 8, Beugnot left Diisseldorf,
and the Grand-Duchy of Berg had come to an end, leaving in
its train much misery and few regrets.

When, on September 24, 1810, Roederer was appointed to
the post of Minister and Secretary of State to the Grand-
Duchy of Berg, Napoleon told him that his administration
should be the training-school of the States of the Confederation
of the Rhine5. There is certainly much to admire alike in
what was achieved as in what was proposed by the governors

1 Rapport mensuel, juillet 1813 : c Plus de 70 vols, dans 17 avec effrac-
tion, ont ete commis dans les trois departements du Grand-duche dans le
courant du mois dejuin' ; A. F. iv. 1886 A.

2 Rapport sur la situation du Grand-duche, Nov. 4, 1813, A. F. iv.
1226 ; and cf. Rapport sur la situation administrative du Grand-duche pour
le second trimestre de 1813 (April 1, 1813), complaining of the i inconceiv-
able indulgence of the Assize Courts.' ( In the last session of the Depart-
ment of the Ruhr a homicide, an infanticide, and a dangerous thief were
acquitted.'

3 Beugnot to Roederer, Nov. 15, 1813 ; A. F. iv. 1865.

4 Ibid.

6 Roederer, (Euvres, iii. 425.

%%% NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

of this small principality. They achieved the abolition of
caste, they introduced a substantial improvement in the lot
of the peasantry, and under their rule all the trammels were
removed which impeded the free transfer of land and the free
entrance into trades and handicrafts. So broken was the power
of the Ritterschaft, so active were the sales and acquisitions of
property as the result of the French legislation, that in 1815 it
was exceptional to find an estate of over 300 acres *. Feudal
institutions were gone, never to return, despite the interested
efforts of a class to revive them. But it was not merely by
their laws that the French left a permanent mark upon the
duchy. Their administration was a pattern and a precedent.
The Prussians, indeed, had done good bureaucratic work in
Mark and in Minister before the French occupation, but it was
the French who first adequately expounded the arts of finance
and administration to the whole region. To the slovenly
government of the Bavarians in Berg, the French methods,
combining as they did strict control with prompt, orderly, and
intelligent action, and distinguished always for their clear
definition and distribution of functions, were related as the
railway train is related to the stage coach. And combined
with greater despatch there was a finer taste and a more alert
perception of the thing to be done, so that in the bridges and
quays, in the delicious gardens and pleasant avenues of Dussel-
dorf, the visitor may still enjoy the permanent memorials of
French rule2.

The vice of the government was that it was tyrannical, and
afforded no scope for the political education of its subjects.
The Estates were never summoned a second time, and the
Council of State, which possessed no powers of initiative, and
was forbidden to correspond with the prefects, was often not
even consulted upon important measures3. Since the news-

1 Treitschke, Deutsche Geschichte, ii. 274.

2 Immediately after the Emperor's visit a decree was issued for the
embellishment of Dusseldorf, for the construction of quays and bridges,
and for the completion of the new port ; A. F. iv. 1837.

3 Roederer to Beugnot, Aug. 31, 1811. 'Dans toutes les occasions ou
il n'y a pas lieu d'apprehender de mauvaises dijjicultes de la part du con-
seil d'etat ou d'une commission du conseil d'etat, il est bon de prendre son
avis. Cela donne plus de securite a V Empereur. S. M. ma plusieurs

PROBLEMS OF GOVERNMENT IN BERG 223

papers were censured and restrained from publishing any poli-
tical news which had not already appeared in the French
official organs, nothing more trivial or contemptible can be
conceived than the journalism of the duchy1. While the
vicious system of administrative law protected the agents of
the administration from the normal action of the law courts,
commerce and industry were paralysed by a system which
sacrificed the interests of the duchy not only to the plan of
campaign against England, but to the self-interested jealousy
of the mercantile community in France. Great was the havoc
of the conscription. Yet if many things were suffered, much
also was learnt, and many hindrances to larger knowledge were
removed. So swift a destruction of mediaeval detritus, so
rapid an initiation into modern ideas, could scarcely have
been carried out by a force less powerful than the Empire of
Napoleon.

fois demande, en signant des lois generates, si le conseil d'etat approuvait
cela? toutefois sans y insister.' Cf. also Beugnot' s Instructions to the
President of the Council, Staatsraths-Akten, Dusseldorf Archives.

1 These local newspapers have consequently been seldom preserved.
For instance, there are only eleven known extant copies of the Echo
der Berge, which enjoyed a tolerable circulation (400 regular subscribers)
at the time, and these would have perished but that they fell into the
hands of a man who was interested in the advertisements of horse sales.
The paper is an entirely worthless rag, as I can testify, having seen the
surviving numbers in the Dusseldorf Archives.

Chief Authorities : Beugnot, Memoires ; Roederer, CEuvres, vol. iii ;
Lumbroso, Lettres de Murat ; Goecke, Das Grossherzogthum Berg ; Pick,
Monatsschrift fiir rheinisch-westfdlische Geschichtsforschung, 1877 ; Recueil
des Actes du Gouvernement du Grand-duche, 1808 ; Sammlung der Gesetze
und Verordnungen, welche in den ehemaligen Herzogthumern Julich, Cleve und
Berg und im vormaligen Grossherzogthum Berg ergangen sind, ed. Scotti,
1821-2 ; Bormann und Daniels, Handbuch der f. die konigl. preuss.
Rheinprovinzen verktindigten Gesetze, Verordnungen und Regierungsbe-
schlusse aus der Zeit der Fremdherrschaft, vii. 1-349, 1834 ; A. Winkopp,
Der rheinische Bund.

To these printed sources must be added the unpublished correspondence
of Beugnot, Nesselrode, Bassano, and Roederer ; the police reports ; the
reports of prefects, commissions, judges, &c. ; the memoranda and petitions
of merchants and public bodies, lying in the Archives Nationales in Paris
and in the Staatsarchiv at Dusseldorf.

CHAPTER XI

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE WESTPHALIAN

KINGDOM

e Les Etats ne se fondent que par la politique.' — Napoleon.

Among the political creations of Napoleon in Germany the
most curious and important was the Kingdom of Westphalia,
which for six years exhibited to the world the spectacle of
a licentious Court and a good constitution, of beneficent
reforms sacrificed to an insane policy, of Latin enlightenment
transfusing Teutonic darkness, and of Teutonic industry honestly
enlisted in the cause of a Latin government. Formed in 1807,
after the downfall of Prussia, the kingdom was mainly composed
of the confiscated States of the Duke of Brunswick, of the
Elector of Hesse-Cassel, and of the Prussian King. To these
territories were added the County of Stolberg, a Prussian fief,
the County of Rietberg, a fief of Hesse-Cassel, the territories
of Gottingen, Grubenhagen, and Osnabriick taken from Hanover,
and the Abbey of Corvey taken from the Prince of Orange.
On November 15, 1807, the Hessian part of the County of
Henneberg and the Principality of Corvey were attached to the
kingdom, the area of which was calculated at something over
nineteen hundred square leagues. The net revenue on October 1,
1807, was estimated at nineteen million francs, and the popula-
tion at two million souls, and a glance at the map will reveal
how arbitrary was the construction and how unnatural were the
boundaries of this modest State.

Yet, although comparatively small, the Kingdom of West-
phalia covered some of the most historic ground in Germany.
It was in the forests of the Department of the Weser that
Arminius met and defeated the Roman legions, and it was
mainly within the limits of this kingdom that Charles the Great
fought out his long struggle with the Saxon race1. The

1 Some attempt was made to exploit these memories in the interests of

To faff pnge 224

Derbyshire t Sftrtforcf Ltd.

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 225

abbeys of Hersfeld and Fulda were founded in the first age
of the conversion of Germany to Christianity, richly endowed
by the monarchs of the Carolingian House, and famous as
centres of learning and piety. In the mountains of the Harz,
renowned for their mines of silver, the ancient city of Goslar,
once the capital of the Saxon Emperors, still shows the Kaiser-
haus of Henry III. Although Hildesheim, in the Department
of the Ocker, cannot boast such memories as these, the traveller
may still admire in this, one of the most beautiful of mediaeval
German cities, an ancient fountain of Roland the paladin of
Charles the Great, and the house of Leibnitz, perhaps the
most accomplished mjnd in the history of Germany. Not
far from Hildesheim is the city of Brunswick, which, owing
to the genius and energy of Henry the Lion, became in the
twelfth century a centre of civilization in Northern Germany.
That great prince who raised five cathedrals, all extant at the
present day, has left an abiding impress upon his capital, and
the old ducal castle, built, so it is said, in rivalry of the
Emperor's house at Goslar, the plan of which it closely follows,
recalls the most famous feud of German mediaeval history.
A few miles south of their capital, the Dukes of Brunswick could
show in the park of the castle of Wolfenbuttel a library which,
founded in the middle of the seventeenth century by Duke
Ernest Augustus, became one of the richest collections north
of the Alps. The catalogue of the library, written in the small
neat hand of the founder, serves to remind the visitor of how,
amid the dreary horrors of the Thirty Years'* War, it was
possible for a fine nature to preserve and cultivate a taste
for letters. An eminent writer upon chess, a zealous and
efficient governor, the prince-librarian left to his descendants
a persistent tradition of culture, and though few people would
now care to read the tedious scandals of Duke Ulric's Octavia,
the fact that both Leibnitz and Lessing were librarians at

the new kingdom, cf. Archiv fur die Geschichte, Geographie, Topographie
und Statistik des Kon. Westphalen, J. P. Rosenmeyer, Cassel, 1808, where
Westphalia is termed ( the classic soil of German courage and Roman
defeats/ or again, the ( red soil of the Holy Vehm.' From these tumid
memories the laborious editor descends to chronicle the prosperous fortunes
of the chicory business.

FISHER Q

<£26 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Wolfenbiittel is familiar to many who have never heard of the
Aquitanian Register or of the smoke-blackened Icelandic codex
of EgiPs Saga which form part of its treasures.

At the extreme south-east of the kingdom stood the town
of Halle, whose university was only second in reputation to
that of Gottingen. Here Wolf elaborated his famous theory
of the Homeric poems, and here Gellert composed his meek
pastoral literature to the delight of eighteenth-century readers.
But the largest and most important town in the kingdom
was unquestionably Magdeburg, which, standing in a bend of
the Elbe, commands the avenue into Prussia. It is recorded
that during the negotiations at Tilsit, Queen Louise implored
Napoleon to spare her this, the principal fortress of her king-
dom ; but the Emperor was inexorable, and this ancient city,
established by Otto I as the seat of an archbishopric, and
a centre whence Christian influence might spread through the
Slavonic plains to the east, was now after eight centuries severed
from the March of Brandenburg and given to Westphalia.

Among the rolling pine-clad hills, threaded by the delightful
waters of the Lahn and the Fulda, dwelt the Hessians, a tough,
hard-featured race proudly reckoning its descent from the Chatti,
the warlike and formidable opponents of the Roman legions.
Ever since the day when Luther and Zwingli held dispute over
the Sacrament in the picturesque schloss at Marburg, Hesse had
been the great north-western bulwark of the Protestant cause.
In all the wars of religion the Hessians had poured their blood
freely on behalf of the Gospel. They had fought against
Charles V and Ferdinand II, against Philip II and Louis XIV.
Even in the eighteenth century, when their rulers were base and
venal, the Hessian sword had always been hired out to a
Protestant bidder, and in the Highlands of Scotland, in the
plains of the Netherlands, and in the American colonies the
Hessian infantry battled stoutly in the British cause. In
temper, sympathy, and historic tradition no German stock was
more alien to France.

An acute observer, commenting upon the governments which
had previously held sway in the Kingdom of Westphalia, says
that the rule of Brunswick was the mildest, and that of
Prussia the sharpest, that of Hesse-Cassel the most oppressive,

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 227

and that of Hanover the most sleepy. It seems, indeed, almost
impossible to exaggerate the misgovernment and backwardness
of Hesse, which in geographical extent and importance was
the principal factor in the new kingdom. The Hessians, says
de Villers, were ' the least instructed of all the Protestant
peoples,' and under the last Elector they had been the worst
governed. That jealous and miserly despot had drained
the wealth, impoverished the spirit, and stunted the intelli-
gence of his subjects. So grotesque were his suspicions that
he forbade foreign travel and prohibited applause at the
theatre for fear of encouraging the spirit of popular criticism.
That he speculated in corn and in soldiers, raising the price
of wheat to fill his own coffers, and levying a tax of eight
Reichsthalers on the marriage of persons liable to military
service, is a proof of his signal avarice. And no better tribute
can be paid to the completeness of his authority, than the fact
that for two years he succeeded in keeping his people ignorant
of the course of the French revolution. Redeeming the wicked
profusion of his predecessors by a parsimony no less extravagant,
William banished the most trivial as well as the more expensive
luxuries from his Court. The effects of this unparalleled
meanness were more especially felt in his capital. The castle
of Cassel fell into disrepair ; the stock-in-trade of the shops
was reduced, and the town became poorer and poorer every
day. * There is not even a bit of ribbon to be found here,'
said the Queen of Westphalia, 'and when one asks why, the
answer is that the ex-Elector could not suffer, and did not
suffer, any luxury at the Court1.'

Aristocratic exclusiveness mingled with a rude and primitive
simplicity were the salient features of this province. At
Marburg, where the professors received part of their salaries
in wheat, barley, and hay, no plebeian was permitted to
matriculate without special licence. Delicate travellers from

1 Villers, Coup d'ceil sur les universites et le mode aV instruction publique de
TAllemagne protestante, Cassel, 1808 ; Winkopp, Der rheinische Bund, vi.
126 ff., 144 ff. ; Fulda und Hoffmeister, Hessische Zeiten und Personlich-
keiten, 22-45 ; Schlossberger, Briefwechsel der Kbnigin Katharina und
des Konigs Jerome von Westphalen, i. 99, 111, 211 ; Zinserling, West-
phalische Denkwurdigkeiten, 6, 7 ; Bignon to Talleyrand, Nov. 30, xii ;
Affaires etrangeres, Correspondance Politique : Hesse-Cassel, 18.

q2

228 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

France shuddered at the coarse and hideous appearance of
the Hessian peasantry, at the long matted hair of the men,
at the short petticoats, the curious coifs, and the wrinkled faces
of the women, without reflecting that this debased appearance
was partially connected with exhausting corvees and burden-
some dues. In the neighbourhood of the capital alone there
were signs of civilized grandeur. The huge and hideous fabric
of Wilhelmshohe, built, like the Pyramids, by the forced
labour of a servile population, loomed from its beautiful woods
upon the russet city, while beneath the favourite promenade
of the Cassel burghers, the skilful hand of Lenotre had planned
the glades and avenues, the fish-ponds and the bowling-green
which were demanded by the taste of the cultured Frenchman \
On the day of the signature of the Peace of Tilsit, July 7,
1807, Napoleon made his choice of a Westphalian king. * My
brother,1 he wrote to Prince Jerome, ' I have just concluded peace
with Russia and Prussia. You have been recognized as King
of Westphalia. Your kingdom comprises all the States named
in the enclosed list. . . . You must procure a secretary who
is very well acquainted with German, and you must begin
at once to think of some distinguished Alsatians, whom you
can propose to me as likely to assist you in your administration.
I intend to give you a regular constitution which effaces all
vain and ridiculous social distinctions.'

The youngest brother of the Emperor, while endowed with
no small social charm and natural facility, was uncultivated,
lazy, and voluptuous. From his early youth he had shown
a propensity to extravagance which Napoleon had hoped to
correct by the stern discipline of the sea. Jerome, however,
was not of the stuff of which sailors are made, and was more
intent upon cards, dinners, and flirtations, than upon the
capture of British cruisers or the acquisition of maritime know-
ledge. As an ensign he borrowed money from his admiral,
as a lieutenant he ignored the orders of his superiors, as
a captain he took upon himself to confer promotions. Escaping
once from the tedium of ship-life among the Antilles, he
found his way to Baltimore, where he conquered the heart

1 Precis de Funiversite de Marbourg, Marburg Archives ; L. de Grainberg,
Lettres sur la Westphalie (Carlsruhe, 1807).

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 229

and the hand of Miss Pattison, the beautiful daughter of an
American merchant. Though Jerome was fully aware that
a marriage contracted during minority without the consent
of relations was legally invalid in France, he trusted that he
would be able to overcome all obstacles. Napoleon, however,
had other designs for his favourite brother, and absolutely
declined to sanction the match ; and with a flagrant lack of
chivalry, Jerome consented to barter his wife and unborn child
for ambition. Fortified by this act of prudential baseness,
the prodigal youth received rapid advancement. In 1807 he
was put in command of the contingent of the Confederation of
the Rhine, and charged with the double duty of reducing the
Prussian garrisons in Silesia and of forwarding supplies to
the main army. With Hedouville as chief of his staff, and
Vandamme and Montbrun to assist him, the Prince made
a successful opening, and though his own conduct was marked
by incompetence, luxury, and sloth, eight strong fortresses
fell before the German troops under his command. Shortly
after the end of the campaign, August 23, 1807, the Prince
was married to Catharine of Wiirtemberg, a fair young woman
of twenty-four. She was kindly, steadfast, and simple, well
educated after the German manner, a Protestant in religion.
It is to her credit that though she stood out for a year against
her marriage, and went to it as to a sacrifice, she never
wavered in her fidelity to Jerome, finding as she tells us ' the
purest and most constant happiness' in her union with him.
She has left memoirs which betray a sweet and submissive
disposition, a childish mind, and a total absence of any sense
of public responsibility.

An influential deputation from the various provinces of the
new kingdom was summoned to Paris to give advice upon the
situation, and to do homage to their sovereign. On the morning
of August 16, 1807, the emissaries were presented to the
Emperor in the Tuileries. * Religion,' said Napoleon, curvetting
before the dazzled Germans on the high far-striding steed of
principle, 'is an affair of conscience, not of the State. Small
States are no good. You will have a great kingdom reaching
perhaps to Hamburg. The soldiers are to protect, not to quell
you. The nobility is not to count. He who distinguishes

230 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

himself and shows merit is to be promoted. Kings are not for
themselves, but for the happiness of their people."' His eye
then rested upon the ecclesiastical accoutrements of Abbot
Henke, professor of evangelical theology in the University
of Helmstadt. * What, are you a Protestant ? ' Then seizing
the golden cross which hung upon the abbot's breast, i What
does that bring you in?1 he asked. 'Two hundred thalers,'
said the abbot. ' It is well worth while. Keep your religion.
In every religion one can be a good man.1 A deputy breathed
a hope that the war contribution might be remitted. The
Emperor stabbed him with a look and passed on. Then another
ventured an assurance of loyalty. 'We will do our best,' he
said, 'to serve your Majesty.' 'That's right,' said Napoleon
quickly. 'The Germans are instructed, learned, patient men.
There are no traitors among them. If they give their word,
that is enough. In a few days you shall have your constitution.
You shall make your remarks on it.'

On the next day the deputies dined with the King, and on
August 22 they chose a committee to comment upon the draft
constitution which had been submitted to them. Five days
later their criticisms and their wishes were submitted to Jerome.
They petitioned for the exclusive use of the German language
in all the acts of the government. They desired an assurance
that all places should be filled as far as possible by natives.
They commended the employes and pensioners of the old
government to the consideration of the new King. Remark-
ing upon the ' sensible loss ' which would result to the kingdom
from the intended annexation of half the domains from the
Emperor, they petitioned to be released from the arrears of
the war contributions which had been levied on them during the
last year. As the city of Magdeburg had suffered greatly in
the war, it was their prayer that it might be occupied by as small
a garrison as possible. Then turning to the internal reforms
specified in the constitution, and first of all to the proposed
abolition of serfage, they drew the attention of the King to the
distinction between true personal serfage and territorial charges,
arguing that there was no ' odious serfage ' in Westphalia, and
that if services due to Westphalian lords were to be abolished,
a full and entire compensation should be paid to the expropriated

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 231

owners. Finally, they petitioned that all existing entails and
family settlements should be preserved, that a uniform system
of taxation should not be introduced until a careful estimate
of land values had been made, that the Civil Code should not
be put into force for three years, and that the language of the
law courts should be German.

These observations were too far-reaching to please either
the Emperor or the King. If the population of Paris stared
on * the German pedants 1 as ' beasts from a menagerie,' King
Jerome treated them as little better than schoolboys. With
a few vague and breezy assurances they were sent back to their
homes. ' All that is good,' said the King, giving a final audience
at St. Cloud on August 30, * shall remain. I will alter nothing.
I am not changeable. My subjects are Westphalians, not
Frenchmen. In a few years I shall speak and write German.
I will appoint only natives V

The expected constitution was promulgated on November 15,
1807, and may be considered either in the light of a treaty or in
that of a decree 2. It stipulated the conditions under which
the Emperor was willing to renounce his 'right of conquest,'
and to present to Westphalia a certain degree of independence.
As a member of the Confederation of the Rhine, the new king-
dom was bound to furnish a contingent of 25,000 men to the
French Empire. Of this number exactly half was for the
present to be furnished by France, though it was to be paid,
clothed, and kept by the King of Westphalia. Provisionally
the French contingent was to garrison Magdeburg, which was
to be at once a royal town and an imperial fortress. By the
second article the Emperor reserved one-half of the allodial
domains of the expropriated princes to be employed as a re-
compense to the French officers who had rendered most service
during the late war. The Kingdom of Westphalia was declared
to be hereditary in the direct lawful line of King Jerome, and
it was to devolve to the Emperor or his heirs and descendants,
natural and legitimate or adoptive, in case the natural and

1 Neue Fakkeln, xii. 179 ff. ; Verhandlungen der Deputirten des Konigreichs
Westphalen zu Paris, Kiel, 1852 ; Zeitschri/t des Historischen Vereinsfur
Niedersachsen, 1886, 148 ff.

2 Corr. xvi. 167, no. 13,362.

232 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

legitimate descent from Jerome should fail. The King of
Westphalia was to remain a French prince, and together with
his family to be subject to the dispositions of the pact of the
Imperial Family, and in the case of a minority the Regent of
the kingdom was to be selected from among the princes of the
Royal Family by the head of the French Empire. The Civil List
was fixed at 5,000,000 francs. The Code Napoleon was to form
the civil law of the Kingdom of Westphalia from January 1,
1808. Procedure was to be public, and trial by jury to be intro-
duced in criminal cases from July 1, 1808^ while conscription
was declared to be a fundamental law of the kingdom. The
French monetary system and the French system of weights and
measures were also introduced. All previously existing estates and
corporations were abolished. Serfage and individual privilege
were suppressed, and the nobility were no longer to be allowed
to claim the exclusive right to any employment, function, or
dignity, or exemption from any public charge. It was decreed
that the system of taxation should be uniform throughout the
kingdom, and that the land-tax should not exceed one-fifth of
the revenue.

These provisions secured the predominance of the French
Emperor, and the prevalence of the most valuable principles
of French civilization. The King was to be aided by four
ministers. There was to be a Minister of State, a Minister of
Interior and Justice, a War Minister, and a Minister for Finance,
Commerce, and the Treasury. The ministers were to be assisted
by the Council of State and the Estates of the kingdom.
The members of the Council were named by the King, and the
appointment of a councillor was revocable at will. This body
drafted laws, assisted the administration with advice, and acted
also as a Court of Cassation, and as a High Court for ad-
ministrative cases. The many doubtful points both of private
and of constitutional law which arose during the first few years
of the kingdom were discussed and decided in the Council of
State, which performed the same kind of office towards the
Westphalian Constitution which the English Privy Council
has performed towards the Canada Act, and the Federal Court
towards the American Constitution. The Estates of the realm
were to be composed of a hundred members named by the depart-

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 233

mental colleges. Of these members seventy were to be chosen
among proprietors, fifteen among merchants and manufacturers,
and fifteen among savants and other persons who had deserved
well of the State. One-third of the assembly was to retire by
rotation every year, but was subject to re-election. The
Estates were denied the right of initiative or open discussion.
They were only permitted to discuss bills drafted by the Council
of State, and submitted to them by order of the King, upon
finance, upon alterations in the monetary system, or upon the
civil and military code. Further, no bill was submitted im-
mediately to the whole assembly. The Council of State was
divided into three sections, and the Estates into three correspond-
ing commissions. Every bill was discussed at a joint meeting
of a section and a commission, and then two orators, one
representing each body, reported the discussion to the legislature.
The legislature listened in silence, and voted by secret ballot.

The Estates may have been fairly representative of the
kingdom, but the constitutional purist would not be satisfied
by the method of their election. In every department there
was an electoral college, the members of which were chosen for
life by the King from the wealthiest landowners, merchants, and
manufacturers, or from the most distinguished artists and savants
of the district. This college named the members of the Estates,
and also presented candidates for the departmental, district, and
municipal councils, and for the places of justices of the peace.

The territory of the kingdom was divided into departments,
the departments into districts, the districts into cantons, the
cantons into municipalities. The department was administered
by a prefect, the district by a sub-prefect, the municipality by
a mayor. In each canton there was to be a justice of the peace
elected for four years, in each district a civil court of first
instance, in each department a criminal court, and for the whole
kingdom a court of appeal. The judges were named by the
King, and if during the first five years of office their conduct
was satisfactory, their patents were made out for life. The
justices of the peace were indeed removable, but since they were
nominated by the electoral college, there was some guarantee
that they would not be dismissed with caprice.

If the constitution was far from perfect, for the Hessians

234 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

who formed the majority of the population it meant the ex-
change of darkness for light. The old aristocratic Landstande
of Hesse, of Brunswick, of Prussia, and of the bishoprics were
not to be compared even to this dumb legislature, which reposed
upon a basis of equality not privilege, which enlisted the energies
of the middle class, and was capable with enlightened direction
of becoming a powerful instrument of progress.

Napoleon was fully alive to the value of the principle of
social equality. 'Take care,' he wrote to Jerome, 'that the
majority of your council be composed of non-nobles, but so that
no one may perceive this, mind that you maintain the third
estate in a majority in all the posts. I except some places at
Court, to which you must summon the greatest names. But in
your ministries, your councils, if possible in your law courts
and court of appeal, and in your administration, let the greater
part of the persons employed be non-nobles. This will go to
the heart of Germany, and perhaps annoy the other class. Do
not mind that. The declared principle is to choose talents
wherever they can be found V

A Council of Regency nominated by Napoleon was sent to
Cassel to take over the civil administration from General
Lagrange, and to prepare the way for the new monarch.
Beugnot, Simeon, and Jollivet were admirably qualified for
the task of organizing the new kingdom. Of Simeon, indeed,
it seems difficult to speak too highly. He was an urbane and
dignified old jurist, of great tact and discernment, and thoroughly
penetrated with the best French administrative spirit. As
a Councillor of State he had helped in the formation of the Civil
Code, and was highly qualified to superintend its introduction
into Westphalia, and his circulars to the prefects, printed in
the Westphalian Moniteur, form a kind of lucid manual upon the
principles of French administration. But for a total ignorance
of German, and a courteous pliancy of character which prevented
him from asserting his convictions in the face of opposition, he
would have been an almost ideal public servant. As it was,
Reinhard, the intelligent French minister at Cassel, regretted
that he was not placed at the head of all the branches of ad-
ministration. Jollivet, who under the Consulate had liquidated

1 Corr.xvi. 174, no. 13,365.

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 235

the debt of the four Rhenish departments, brought to his task
an observant if somewhat malicious mind, and a ripe experience
of finance, while to Beugnot there was but one serious objection,
that he suffered from the maladie du pays which was so common
to Frenchmen and so fatal to the expansion of France. While
General Lagrange remained at the War Office, Napoleon succeeded
in seducing Johann von Miiller, the famous historian of Switzer-
land, to assume the portfolio of Secretary of State. Loud were
the laments of Perthes the publisher, and of the friends of
German liberty, at the unexpected apostasy of a revered leader.
A conversation with the Emperor at Berlin, in 1806, had con-
verted the ardent Gallophobe into the admirer of the Corsican's
genius, and the rest was contrived at Paris. It was a fine
advertisement for the new kingdom to have enlisted the services
of the • Tacitus of Germany.1

It was a misfortune that the Emperor who had chosen the
Council of Regency did not also choose the Court. Jerome
was not the kind of young man to consort with the wise and
the good ; nor would the attractions of Cassel have been
sufficient to entice the distinguished. A few personal friends
of his early youth, Meyronnet, Duchambon, Lecamus, Rewbell,
La Fleche, Salha ; some officers from the Silesian campaign,
such as Morio, d'Albignac, and the Prince of Hesse-Philippstadt ;
a dull poet, Bruguiere, an emigre who had sold tooth-picks at
Hamburg, a few nonentities, and, most important of all, the
Count of Truchsess-Waldburg, Minister of the Court of
Wiirtemberg at Paris, who came to escape from his debts, —
such was the composition of the new Versailles. More than
one quite obscure person declined to accept Jerome's advances.

The royal entry into Cassel, made on December 7, 1807,
was attended with a show of popular enthusiasm. The castle
of Wilhelmshohe was rechristened Napoleonshohe, and as the
furniture was not to the French taste, a large order was sent
to the upholsterers of Paris. On the day of his arrival the
King pronounced the Regency at an end, appointed its members
to be provisional ministers, and required them to swear an oath
to ' exercise faithfully and loyally the functions conferred upon
them by His Majesty of Westphalia.' In an allocution to the
Council of State, Jerome declared that he could not permit

236 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

the ex-members of the Regency to exercise in Westphalia an
authority independent of his own. He was determined to let
the world know that he was autocrat and master in his own
home. Eight days afterwards there followed a ministerial
revolution. The capable Lagrange was summarily dismissed,
and the portfolio of War passed into the hands of a young
aide-de-camp, Colonel Morio. Von Miiller was invited to
relinquish the State secretariat and given the more congenial
post of Minister of Education. To the vacant office was
attached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a post which Napoleon
had expressly declined to create that he might keep the diplo-
matic relations of the kingdom under his own control, and this
fifth portfolio was given to an ignorant but honest young
Creole, who had accompanied Jerome in his American voyages, and
was now an indispensable element in his life. It was fortunate
that Westphalia had no foreign policy, seeing that it would
have fallen to Lecamus, Count of Furstenstein, to direct it.
Jollivet, writing soon afterwards to the French Court, refers
to one of the functions discharged by this highly endowed
personage. 'A comedienne of Breslau, whom the King had
known during his Silesian campaign, seems to have been drawn
to Cassel by the agency of M. Lecamus and the order of his
master V As if this were not enough, Jerome petitioned for the
army contractor Hainguerlot as Minister of Finance, in place
of Jollivet whom he disliked, and whose retirement he foresaw.

This cool proposal put the coping-stone to Napoleon's ire.
On January 4 he wrote three boiling letters to the youth.
'I have received your letter relative to the speech which you
have pronounced at your Council of State. I have found this
speech ridiculous. No Frenchman will swear the oath which
you demand, save the Frenchmen to whom I shall accord the
permission to pass into your service. Neither my Councillors of
State nor my officers can swear this oath to you. If Beugnot
and Simeon wish to remain with you, they can do as they wish.
If they have sworn the oath which you have exacted, I will
strike them from the list of my Councillors of State. ... As
to Hainguerlot, I can only be astonished at your levity. He is
a man prosecuted for fraud, on criminal charges such that he
1 Revue Historique} xv. 391 ; Memoires du roi Jerome, iv. 240.

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 237

is the horror of France. Ask Simeon, Beugnot, Jollivet, what
they think of him. ... I have your letter of December 15,
relative to General Lagrange. I disapprove your conduct.
General Lagrange is not your subject ; he is not responsible
to you for what he has done in his administration ; you have
not then the right to dishonour him. . . . What pleasure can
you take in dishonouring the military uniform ? . . . You must
clearly grasp the fact that you have no jurisdiction over the
Frenchmen whom I send you, and that you ought only to
inform me of what they do. I reserve my right of adopting
a course suitable to my interests and my experience. If this
conduct does not suit you, send me back the Frenchmen
you have, and go on with Germans. I have your letter of
December 28, where I see that you intend to give the property
of Fiirstenstein, worth 40,000 a year, to Sieur Lecamus. I know
nothing more insensate than this step, equally contrary to your
interests, fatal to the State and especially to yourself. What
has Sieur Lecamus done ? He has rendered no service to the
country, only to your person. ... If you have done this you
must go back upon it, or Sieur Lecamus must renounce his
character of French citizen, in which case he loses all rights of
inheritance in France. . . . What sort of finance can you expect
to have with the conduct you keep ? You have devoured
3,000,000 in two months at Paris ; you will devour 30,000,000
without rhyme or reason in less time than that. You must not
think the Kingdom of Westphalia is an estate V

In these short and stinging phrases the Emperor indicated
the subordinate position of the Westphalian kingdom.

The supply of ability at the disposal of the King, though
not overwhelming, was adequate to the needs of the State.
On the departure of Beugnot in March 1808, the portfolio of
Finance was given to a young and vigorous German. Baron
von Biilow, a cousin of the famous Prussian minister von
Hardenberg, had distinguished himself by saving the funds of
the treasury of Magdeburg from the clutches of the French
during the Jena campaign. Having served Prussia with fidelity,
he now transferred his loyalty to the Westphalian government.
But though his ability as a financier was unquestioned, and
1 Corr. xvi. 229-32, nos. 13,433, 4, 5.

238 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

though his integrity was applauded by Reinhard, he lived in
a thick cloud of suspicion. Opening his doors once a week
to all who had a request to prefer, he seemed to the French
to be aiming at more popularity than was either convenient
or safe. It was certainly his object to further German interests
and to dispense with the services of French subordinates ; it
may be that he was kept acquainted with the secret move-
ments of German nationalism. At any rate, the French plotted
his overthrow. One said that he was a Prussian traitor, another
that he belonged to the Tugendbund, a third that he had
robbed the departmental chests to please the King. On October
3, 1809, Madame von Billow found a police spy sitting at her
husband's desks and examining his papers. It was a premature
act on the part of the police, and it caused a great scandal.
The King was reported to have said that his Minister of
Finance was an imperturbable liar, and the Minister of the
Interior held that the King had set the police upon his colleague.
Supported, however, by the upright Simeon, and partly also
by his own merits — for he was really indispensable and paid
the King's Civil List punctually — von Bulow managed to tide
over the incident. But during a political visit to Paris his
influence was undermined, and, accused of intrigues with Prussia
and of plotting the financial ruin of the kingdom, he was
arrested, deposed, and pensioned off (April 9, 1811). In him
the kingdom lost an honest and able servant, who detested
Napoleon. The vice of Bulow was not treachery but com-
plaisance. General Eble said that he and Bulow had once
agreed to make a joint remonstrance to the King upon the
subject of Court extravagance, but that Bulow drew back at
the decisive moment1.

Far worse things are insinuated against his successor, Karl
August Malchus. He is said to have carved his way to fortune
by treachery, and to have stopped at nothing so long as he
could retain the royal favour. His arrogant speeches disgusted
the Estates, and he was probably the most unpopular man in

1 Bulow undoubtedly tried to evade the strict execution of Napoleon's
decrees against smuggling. He ordered an auto dafe of worthless wares
to save the pockets of the Osnabruck merchants. Fulda and Hoffmeister,
Hessische Zeiten und Pers'6nlichkeiten3 163.

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 239

the kingdom. But to contrive resources for Jerome was a role
which would fritter away the most amiable of reputations,
and there is every reason to believe that Malchus brought
a certain dogged ability to the task. He was the Thomas
Cromwell of Westphalia, a pliant servant, harsh, brutal, egoistic,
but an authority on finance, and more influenced by French
administrative ideas than von Biilow. Honours rained down upon
his hard head. He was made a Baron, a Commander of the
Order of the Westphalian Crown, and afterwards Count of
Marienrode. Finally he became Minister of the Interior, —
'homme sans conceptions et sans entrailles, says Reinhard, who
tells us how the tithes of the district of Hildesheim were
corruptly sold for the benefit of the minister's relations l.

The department of the Interior was more fortunate. Among
the ministers of Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, few
were more loyal and devoted than the Baron de Wolffradt.
When the Duke, blinded in both eyes and shattered by bullets,
was about to be carried out of his country, Wolffradt with
tears in his eyes entreated that he might be permitted to share
his exile. The Duke took his hand, held it for some minutes
in silence, and then implored him to stand by the duchy
whatever might happen. Having promised that he would
never desert the subjects of his old master, Wolffradt became
their patron and protector at the Westphalian Home Office.
A great respecter of ancient German forms, caring little for
French methods and knowing little of the French language,
Wolffradt stood as barrier against ill-considered change. A
rough man, but honest and intelligent, appreciating and employ-
ing ability, whether French or German, he thoroughly earned
the confidence of his colleagues and of the public.

While these two important offices went to Germans, the port-
folio of War was always given to a Frenchman. Morio, the
successor of Lagrange, who had better military capacities than

1 After the crash Malchus became the scapegoat of the old order. For
some vigorous abuse, cf. Fulda and HofFmeister, 136-8 ; Neue Fakkeln,
iii. 94 ; Le royaume de Westphalie (Paris, 1820), 156-7 ; Der Volkwitz
der Deutschen iiber den gesturzten Bonaparte, i. 23 fF. The charge of
corrupt sales of the public domain is probably false. Cf. Notes concer-
nant le Comte Malchus de Marienrode, Pancoucke.

240 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Napoleon's description of him, 6une espece de fou, would imply,
was one day (August 1808) ill-advised enough to style himself
captain of the guard, and to drill the household troops on his
own authority. For this ebullition the favourite was deprived
of his office, which was given to the excellent General Eble,
the best type of French soldier, at once brave and able, honest
and public-spirited. But the Westphalian service was regarded
with dislike by distinguished Frenchmen, and in 1811 Eble
petitioned for leave to return to France. His successors at the
War Office were General d'Albignac and Salha, the companion
of Jerome's early odyssey, a sailor turned landsman and en-
nobled under the title of Count von Hone.

There were, too, several able and industrious men in
the Council of State, such as Leist, Professor of Law at the
University of Gottingen, who had a principal share in the
official translation of the Civil Code ; Martens, the famous
international lawyer ; von Dohm, a well-known Prussian states-
man and publicist, and a voluminous author, who deserves to
go down to posterity if only for his noble treatise on the
improvement of the civil status of the Jews ; and the caustic
and witty Hanoverian Baron von Berlepsch, whose Beitrdge are
a sufficient evidence of his interest in the economic condition
of his country. In the King's private library at Wilhelmshohe
a studious young man was deeply immersed in the ancient
monuments of German and Scandinavian literature. This was
the great Jacob Grimm, royal librarian and auditor of the Council
of State, who was destined to lay the foundations of Teutonic
philology, and to reveal in all its poetry, pathos, and humour,
the folklore, the custom, and the myth of Teutonic antiquity.

Nor were the elections to the Estates otherwise than re-
assuring. * Nobles,' says Hausser, c were chiefly chosen to repre-
sent the landed proprietors. In the Elbe department we find
the names of Alvensleben, Blumenthal, Schulenberg; in the
Fulda department, Berlepsch, Mengersen, Pirbeck, Munch-
hausen, Schlieffen ; in the Ocker department a Count Brabeck,
two Herren von Munchhausen, a Baron Pless, and a Sievedorf ;
from the Saale, amongst others, the hereditary Counts of
Stolberg-Wernigerode ; from the Werra department two Frei-
herren von Baumbach and a Dornberg; from the Weser the

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 241

names of Borries, Hamerstein, Miinster.1 It is indeed hardly
an exaggeration to say that all the talents of the country rallied
round the new monarchy K

'Be a constitutional king,' wrote Napoleon to his brother.
6 The benefits of the Code Napoleon, the publicity of procedure,
the establishment of juries, will be so many distinctive charac-
teristics of your monarchy. And if I may tell you all my
thought, I count more upon them for the extension and con-
solidation of your kingdom than on the result of the greatest
victories. It is necessary that your people should enjoy a
liberty, an equality, and a degree of well-being unknown to
the people of Germany. This method of government will be
a more powerful barrier to separate you from Prussia than the
Elbe or fortresses or French protection. What people would
wish to revert to Prussian despotism, when it has once tasted
the benefits of a wise and liberal government 2 ? ' Inspired by
these monitions, Jerome baptized his reign with a shower of
edicts and honourable professions. The unfamiliar experiment
of a constitutional government excited the interest and riveted
the attention of Westphalia, and when the Reichstag was
solemnly opened in the Orangerie at Cassel (July % 1808) its
future was regarded with curiosity and hope. Yet the initial
ceremonial was overstrained and grotesque. Warned by a salvo
of twenty-one cannon, the president and eight deputies went
out to meet the royal cavalcade. Clothed in white silk, with
a mantle of purple flowing from his shoulders and a plumed
toque glistening with diamonds on his head, Jerome was escorted
to a pavilion where it was ordained that he should repose after
the fatigues of a drive. Then, as the gaudy procession passed
into the hall, the ushers with staves and daggers, the pages in
uniforms of gold, the assembly rose up with cries of ' Vive le Roi ! '
and when the incoming group had posed itself picturesquely
on the dais, the deputies were severally presented to the
monarch in the murderous Provencal accent of Simeon. After

1 Hausser, iii. 241-2 ; Thimme, ii. 90. Even the proudest men peti-
tioned to serve as prefects ; cf. Hardenberg to the Minister of Finance,
Jan. 3, 1808, in the Marburg Archives. There were, however, a few
notable exceptions. Biilau, Geheime Geschichte, v. 480.

2 Corr. xvi. 166, no. 13,361.

FISHER R

242 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

the oath of allegiance had been taken both in German and in
French, Jerome addressed his first parliament. 'Brave and
good Westphalians,' he concluded, 'on this solemn occasion
when you exercise for the first time your constitutional rights,
you will prove your attachment to my person in seconding my
views for the welfare of my kingdom, that welfare which we
should all cherish. We will work in concert, I as King and
father, you as faithful and affectionate subjects.' 'A light
ironical smile,' says an eyewitness, 'played on the lips of the
deputies,' as the father of the Westphalian people, aged twenty-
three, descended from the throne. At four in the afternoon
the members of the Reichstag were invited into the great hall
of the palace to ' assist at ' the dinner of their Majesties. Baron
de Wendt, Bishop in partibus and Prior of Hildesheim, the
star of the Prussian Eagle on his breast, preceded the royal pair
to the table, chanting a Latin grace from a sumptuous prayer-
book, and as the King reached his hand to drink, the act was
saluted by a salvo of cannon. The starving legislators, who
had misapprehended the nature of the occasion, were mortified
to discover the vicarious character of the feast, nor was their
chagrin entirely expunged by the costly illuminations of the
night \

There is every reason to believe that parliamentary govern-
ment would have succeeded in Westphalia if it had been given
a fair trial. Though the letter of the constitution was clearly
designed to check free and open discussion, Westphalian practice
was better than French theory. When a bill had been drafted
by the Council of State — and we are told that the deliberations
of this body were earnest, thorough, and animated — it was
handed over to one of the standing committees of the parlia-
ment. But the members of this committee, so far from keeping
the measure to themselves, invited the criticisms of their fellow
deputies. Every evening an informal gathering was held at
the president's house, which was attended by most of the
members of the Chamber, and to this meeting the printed draft
of the Council was submitted. Illumined by the instructive
and unpretentious criticisms of their abler colleagues, the
committee then went into conference with the section of the
1 Strombeck, Darstellungen aus meinem Leben, ii. 14-26.

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 243

Council of State which was in charge of the bill, and 'the
keenest desire was shown on both sides to bring the law to
the highest pitch of perfection.' The amendments were then
printed and circulated among the members, so that every
member came prepared to the decisive session, at which the
orators of the Council and of the Estates developed the motives
of the law. 'Their orations,' says a Westphalian legislator,
4 were often masterpieces of logical arrangement and statesman-
like sagacity. One has only to recall the names of WolfFradt,
Leist, Johann von Miiller, names which it would be difficult to
match in more recent times. What would have been the use
of further discussion ? Every one had had full opportunity of
communicating his views by letter to the committee, and the
affair had been frequently debated at the gatherings at the
president's house V

Nevertheless the session was marked by one storm, which
revealed the weak spot in the constitution. A bill for a land-
tax was presented to the Estates, and thrown out by sixty-
one votes to twenty-four. A patriotic deputy from the Weser
department, Hofbauer, who was chosen as the 'reporter' of the
Estates, moved the rejection in a vehement speech. Among
Court circles he was stigmatized as a traitor. Was the King to
go without his revenue ? There was nothing for it, then, but
that the Estates should be dissolved, and the land-tax passed as
a decree. But the wise Simeon was not so autocratic. ' These
gentlemen,' he said, ' would like some more amendments ; would
they kindly tell us what ? If their amendments are acceptable,
we will alter the bill and bring it in again.' It was ascertained
that objection was chiefly taken to the forty-ninth article,
which dealt with the taxation of houses, and that the bill had
been rejected en bloc, because the chamber was not entitled to
improve it in detail. Divested of its objectionable features the
bill was submitted anew, and passed on August 18 by eighty-
three votes to seven. Four days later, after a session which
had lasted fifty-one days, the first Westphalian parliament was
dissolved. On the whole, it had shown more zeal than might
have been expected, and more independence than was relished
by the Court. But its temper was neither revolutionary nor

1 Strombeck, Darstellungen aus meinem Leben, ii. 45-7.

r 2

244 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

obstructive, and it might have been safely trusted to co-operate
with the government in its formidable task \

The populace of the Kingdom of Westphalia was variously
affected towards the new government. Not many weeks had
elapsed since the King's arrival in Gassel, when Jollivet gave
a lugubrious report of the state of opinion in the capital.

'All the world is sad. The King does not receive manv
marks of respect. He rides often in the streets, but is rarely
saluted. He has lost in public opinion. Some affairs of
gallantry have already hurt him. It is generally known that
one of the Queen's ladies has been dismissed because of him.
The first Chamberlain (Lecamus) has nevertheless found means
of retaining this woman in Paris, to crown his deserts. . . . The
mothers of Cassel who have pretty daughters fear to let them
go to Court balls and festivals. The Queen is liked2.1 The
quiet little German town was alternately interested, excited, and
shocked by the whirl of gaiety and dissipation in which it had
become suddenly involved. The gross immorality of the Court,
the utter lack of dignity and self-respect in the King, the
arrogance of the French courtiers and minor officials, the
interference of the new police, were all calculated to engender
irritation, Reinhard, the French minister, writing home on
June 15, 1809, says, with a good deal of penetration, ' In this
sudden creation there are no interests or habits which have not
received a shock, no employe who has not lost either a part of
his salary or emoluments, no individual who has not made
painful efforts either to learn or to unlearn. This state of
things, independently of clandestine manoeuvres of an in-
flammatory tendency the existence of which is unquestioned,
necessarily produces an irritation which will calm down or
increase according to events. It requires upon the part of the
government a firm and consequent bearing, tempered by much
wisdom V The same observer notes that the attachment to the
new order of things made most progress in the provinces which

1 The reluctance of the Stande to abolish guilds and corporations was
overcome by the statement that the abolition had already been decreed in
the constitution. Thimme, ii. 435.

2 Revue Historique, xv. 390.

5 Memoires du roi Jerome, iii. 206.

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 245

had already changed rulers, or in those which, like the Duchy of
Brunswick, had enjoyed the benefits of a liberal administration,
and had become familiarized with political change. In Hesse,
on the other hand, or in the old Prussian provinces, the spirit
of discontent was deeply seated, because the population was
ignorant and passionately attached to its ancient ways; Indeed,
it is one of the most curious facts in Westphalian history that
the Hessian peasantry, which had most to gain from the prin-
ciples of French government, should have resented the rule of
Jerome most keenly ; but the cottage almost always is senti-
mental, and in these rude men of the cottage the sentiment of
loyalty to an ancient though hard dynasty outweighed the
abolition of labour services and feudal dues.

Nevertheless the new administration rapidly made friends.
Even German patriots, like Ch. Rommel, acknowledged the
excellence of the reforms which were introduced so speedily and
comprehensively by their French rulers. The inclusion of a
number of honoured names in the Ministry and the Council of
State diffused confidence, while the creation of departmental
and electoral councils put into welcome activity many slumber-
ing energies. Many of the nobles must have keenly resented
the abolition of feudal dues and corvees, by which they lost
considerably, but, on the other hand, there were substantial
compensations for these losses — places at Court, prefectships,
commissions in the army, decorations and pensions, member-
ship of the Legislative Assembly1. Some narrow Catholics,
Lutherans, and Calvinists disliked the favour which was ac-
corded to the Jews ; no doubt many Westphalian Catholics
disliked the strict application of the Reglements organiques.
The capitation-tax was an obnoxious novelty, the presence of
French troops a reminder of subjection, the levity of the Court
a matter of heart-searching to the serious. Still, the people
were steadily rallying to the monarchy, some filling the bureaux,
some the law courts, others the army. To the peasant mind
could anything be more exciting to ambition than the uniform
of the mayor — white trousers, a dark-blue coat with silver

1 The employes of the Westphalian government were paid on a scale
higher than that which prevailed in France. Histoire de I' esprit public a
Fegard de la France ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Westphalie, 1.

246 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

buttons, a light-blue scarf with a white fringe, a French cocked
hat, and a sword dangling at his side? Or if that splendour
was too transcendent, was there not the milder dignity of a seat
on the municipal council, the 'unnutze Prahlrath, as the joke
went? There was some life in the quiet country-side now,
what with the movement of troops, and the gatherings of
district and departmental councils, and the new justices of
the peace, and the new prefects and sub-prefects, and the royal
progresses with fireworks and triumphal arches and ornamental
speeches ; and every now and again a villager returning from
Cassel with strange tales of masked balls and brilliant doings,
of the castle lit up by night with fairy lanterns, and of the fine
uniforms of the French gentlemen as they swaggered down the
old streets and ogled the girls. By 1809 the monarchy had,
most luckily for itself, enlisted upon its side the greater mass of
Westphalian opinion.

Two years before, there was a well-grounded fear that French
ascendency would mean the proscription of all things German,
beginning with the language. Of the four members of the
Council of Regency who governed the country in 1807, not one
knew a word of German, nor was the acquisition of the German
language regarded by them as necessary or practicable. On
the contrary, Beugnot calmly asserted that it was the duty
of the Germans to learn French. ' Our literatures,1 he said,
writing to a German professor, * would approach each other
with equal success, if there did not exist between them a
barrier difficult to cross — our ignorance of your tongue, the
extreme difficulty of learning it, and the almost complete im-
possibility of speaking it. I have there touched the true point
of the difficulty, your language, which isolates you from Europe,
and retards you. But you will be forced to speak the French
language, and I regard this obligation as a great means of
advancement for science and letters in Germany V

In August 1807, as we have seen, a Westphalian deputation
requested that German should be the official language of the
Kingdom of Westphalia, and that all places should be given to
natives. But, though Jerome promised to learn German him-
self, no pledge was given that the language was to be official,
1 Bulau, Geheime Geschichte, v. 489.

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 247

and the matter was left in convenient obscurity. Reinhard
confesses that he could never find out what the official language
was. Since the King never arrived at any comprehension of the
German tongue, reports and memoranda addressed to him were
written in French, and the same rule applied to communications
which passed between ministers, and to the debates in the
Council of State over which the King frequently presided. ' We
Germans,' writes Wolffradt, 'had much against us, being for the
most part unaccustomed to address so important an assembly
in a foreign and unfamiliar tongue, in the presence of French
ministers who not only had a command of the language and
the subject, but who by their talent and eloquence had shone
in the French legislative assemblies and shone here also. But
the King listened to us gladly, asked us when he did not quite
understand to make our meaning clearer, and very often we won
a victory V The decrees published in the official bulletin were in
French, but accompanied by a German translation. If the prefects
corresponded upon cults, hospitals, charitable institutions, sani-
tation, public instruction, statistics and arts, they were required
to write in French. On the other hand, the communications
which passed between the ministers and the Estates, and much of
the official correspondence of the departments, were in German.
In the army the same dualism was apparent, for the word of
command was given in French in the guard and the corps
(Telite, and in German for the troops of the line. On the whole,
the language difficulty was not so great a grievance as might
have been expected, and it tended steadily to diminish with
lapse of time. German was the language of the law courts
and the legislature, and the German text of the Civil Code was
the official Code of the kingdom. As the Minister of the In-
terior, the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of Education
were all Germans, the greater portion of the administration was
carried on in that language. The Moniteur Westphalien was
bilingual, and both languages were to be taught in the lycee
and burgher schools at Cassel. On the other hand, the Court
spoke French, the choice of administrators and public servants
was restricted, at any rate in the higher branches, to those who

2 Denkwiirdigkeiten eines ehemaligen braunschw. Ministers, Deutsche Rund-
schau, xlvi. 65.

248 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

wrote and spoke both languages, and in four departments,
Justice, War, Police, Foreign Affairs, the business was largely if
not entirely conducted in the language known to the heads of
the departments.

The fear that all the high places would be given to French-
men proved to be illusory. The Frenchman does not willingly
emigrate, even to Germany. For the first few months, a mis-
cellaneous crowd of French adventurers gathered together in
Cassel in the hope of making a fortune out of the new kingdom.
But they were bitterly disappointed. Westphalia was not an
El Dorado, nor was Cassel a city of delights. ' Things,' wrote
Jollivet, ' are not going as was expected. The French who had
repaired to Westphalia are retiring in numbers and entirely
discontented. They are bored in the town, they are displeased
with the Court, where, say they, there is neither money nor
pleasure1.' Even the men who had high posts, like Beugnot
or Eble, longed to be rid of them and to quit this provincial
arena for a more brilliant stage. Nor was there any desire
among promising and talented young Frenchmen to enter the
Westphalian service. It was, as we have seen, with a certain
difficulty that Jerome recruited his Court, and when once he
had departed with his suite of fifty mediocrities the flow from
Paris to Cassel ceased. When a capital devours a country, as
Paris had devoured France, young men of distinction do not
value proconsulates. So, in default of Frenchmen, the ad-
ministration of Westphalia came to be managed almost entirely
by Germans. The Prussian, Baron von Bulow, is Minister of
Finance ; the Brunswicker, Baron von Wolnradt, is at the Ministry
of the Interior ; the Prussian, Count von Schulenberg, is President
of the War section of the Council of State ; von M tiller and
Leist hold successively the portfolio of Education. All the
prefects, judges, and local officials are German. Even the Court
becomes increasingly German, and a Wurtemberger, the Count
of Truchsess-Waldburg, receives the high office of Grand
Chamberlain. In the army the French influence was more
predominant. The Minister of War, the three divisional generals,
and about one-fourth of the officers were either French or
Poles. On the other hand, the brigadiers were all Germans,

1 Revue Historique, xxi. 391.

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 249

and some two-thirds of the officers were recruited from the
nobility of Hesse and Brunswick. The rank and file, with
the exception of 1,100 Dutchmen, were entirely recruited
from the kingdom itself. Considering that the Westphalian
army was a new creation, that its fidelity was at first a
matter of speculation, that under treaty obligations it would
be bound to co-operate in any future war with French troops,
and that France was admittedly the first school of war in
Europe, the French element in the Westphalian army was
perhaps not excessive.

Hardly had the kingdom settled down when it was disturbed
by a series of unexpected incursions and abortive risings. This
is not the place to describe the great events of 1809: the Austrian
declaration of war, the severe check administered to the French
arms at Aspern and Essling, the hard-contested fight at Wagram,
and the humiliating Peace of Vienna imposed by Napoleon on
his vanquished foe. But though the fate of Germany was
decided in the valley of the Danube, ripples from the great
wave of Teutonic resistance passed into the Kingdom of West-
phalia, and threatened to sap its newly-laid foundations. On
five separate occasions the Westphalian population was provided
with a signal for revolt, and the failure of five conspiracies and
incursions seems to demonstrate that the State was more firmly
established than might have been imagined.

The first of these occasions was the expedition of Lieutenant
Friedrich Wilhelm von Katte, of the twenty-seventh regiment
of Prussian foot. It was the design of this young officer to
surprise the fortress of Magdeburg, to hoist the Prussian flag,
and to appeal to the Prussian provinces incorporated in the
Kingdom of Westphalia to return to their old allegiance. On
the night of April 2-3 Katte, who had enrolled some old Prussian
soldiers, arrived at Stendal, a small town north of Magdeburg,
obliged the gendarmes to give up their horses and arms, and then,
dispersing through the villages placards which announced that
a general insurrection was about to take place over the whole
Confederation of the Rhine, marched upon Magdeburg. The
attempt ended in a miserable failure ; a detachment sent by
General Michaud easily dispersed the insurgents ; the Minister
of Prussia gave satisfactory assurances ; and the Elbe depart-

250 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

ment resumed its tranquillity. Of the eleven prisoners captured
in the only skirmish, four were executed.

The second occasion was more serious. The Baron von
Dornberg, a man of fifty-one years of age, quiet, reserved, with
black shining eyes, reminding an admirer of William the Silent,
who had served successively in the Hessian and Prussian armies
and followed Blucher from the field of Jena to the last struggle
at Lubeck, became upon the French conquest a member of the
Tugendbund, an association which had for its object the awaken-
ing of a German spirit of nationality. To propagate this spirit
among the Hessians, his fellow countrymen, Dornberg returned
to live upon his own estates. Being a distinguished soldier he
was offered a commission in the new Westphalian army, and
with a singular lack of honour accepted the pay and the uniform
of the prince whom it was his object to betray. At once
a landed proprietor, a colonel, and a royal chamberlain, Dorn-
berg was able to enlist in the conspiracy a certain number of
people from all classes of the community. Of the Hessian
peasantry, so conservative and so loyal, he had little fear.
A justice of the peace, named Martin, obtained some recruits
among the middle classes, and Dornberg was able to count on a
few highly placed courtiers and officials, on a considerable number
of the lesser Hessian nobility, and upon a sprinkling of officers
and soldiers from the Westphalian army. The grievances and
ideals of this motley aggregation of men were by no means
identical. The lesser nobility resented the loss of their privileges
and the contempt of the alien Court ; the peasantry wished
simply for the old ruler, the old taxes, the old ways ; of the
educated men some were patriotic Hessians, some dreamt of
a Pan-Germanic union, some had received insults from French-
men, others had not received their salaries. Old Hessian officers,
who could not get commissions in the new army, joined because
they were idle and chagrined, and then there were all the
broken men common to an impoverished country which has
been vanquished in war. The King saw that there was a general
spirit of unrest, due, as he thought, to the material misery of
the kingdom, to the poverty of the government, and the
weight of the taxes, and the same fact was commented on in the
despatches of Reinhard. Yet the notorious unease and fer-

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 251

mentation does not seem to have stimulated the activities of
the government.

It was arranged that on the evening of April 22 the insurgents
were to collect in the villages round Cassel, and march in eight
converging columns on the capital. Meanwhile Dornberg and
his friends within the town were to seize Jerome and the French
generals, and imprison them in the castle. Help from over the
border, from Major Schill, from the Duke of Brunswick-Oels,
from the Austrians, was counted upon to complete the conquest.
As to the future settlement there was no clear understanding,
and had the movement succeeded it would certainly have dis-
closed queer divergences of opinion between the different sections
of the conspiracy.

Three days, however, were sufficient to disclose and crush the
insurrection. The peasant levies collected prematurely, and
Dornberg, seeing that the secret was abroad, rode out of Cassel
to join his friends. The main force, starting from Homberg
some 5,000 strong, was met by General Rewbell, who had only
200 foot, 25 horse, and two guns, and scattered at the second
volley. The columns of the north were confronted with some
Polish lancers of the Guard at Wolfshagen, made no resistance,
and were taken prisoners. Three other columns dispersed
without firing a shot. On the whole, Jerome had every reason
to congratulate himself on the demeanour of the country.
The army remained faithful, though there were a few desertions ;
many of the villages requested help against the insurgents,
and the prefects and sub-prefects all did their duty. Great as
had been the alarm, the insurgents were remarkably ill-equipped
for their task. They were ill-armed, ill-disciplined and drunken,
and their numbers were, all things considered, surprisingly small.
Yet it must be remembered that if a few regiments of the West-
phalian army had been detached from their allegiance, immediate
failure might have been converted into temporary success.

Among the conspirators of April there were two men who
had not been summoned in time to participate in the movement.
These were Colonel Emmerich, an old Hessian officer (aged
seventy-five) who lived on an English pension in Marburg,
chewing the cud of anti-Gallicanism, and a certain medical
professor of the Marburg University, by name Dr. Sternberg.

252 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

In the month of June the auguries seemed to these two gentle-
men favourable for a revolt. The Archduke Charles of Austria
had urged the Elector of Hesse to raise the standard in his old
dominions ; the Elector of Hesse was in correspondence with
Sternberg. In the south of Westphalia there were but few
troops, and the nearest important French force was far away
at Hanau. Why, they reflected, should not Marburg be
stirred up to rise against the tyrant ? South Hesse too would
rise, and Austria, fresh from her victory at Aspern, would fly
to the assistance of the tough veterans of the American war.
But success, as Sternberg saw, really depended upon the ability
of Austria to afford assistance, and accordingly he counselled
delay until the Austrian troops were on the frontier. Unex-
pectedly an attack of typhoid laid him low, and the conspiracy
was deprived of its brain. The old colonel babbled in the
taprooms, was cross-examined by the prefect, and then, losing
his head, determined to precipitate the catastrophe. On the
night of June 23-4 he entered Marburg at the head of forty
or fifty peasants, disarmed a piquet of veterans, and rang the
tocsin furiously. But Marburg remained impassive, offering
closed shutters instead of open arms, and the insurgents were
easily driven from the town by the Westphalian general in
command. Not a single Westphalian official gave countenance
to this abortive revolt \

Meanwhile a more serious danger menaced the eastern
province of the kingdom. Major Schill, a famous Prussian
partisan, who on his own initiative had carried on a brilliant
warfare in the later stages of the Franco-Prussian war (1806-7),
left Berlin on April 28, 1809, on the pretext that he was going
to exercise his troop of hussars. Under this innocent pretence
Schill was meditating one of the most audacious exploits in
history, nothing less in fact than the overthrow of the French
dominion in North Germany. As he marched to Potsdam he
halted, harangued his soldiers, and, amidst enthusiastic acclama-
tions, told them that they were now entering into a war to

1 I follow here the account given by W. Varges in the T'agliche Rund-
schau, 1889, nos. 258-9. In some material respects it differs from the
story as told by Lynckner, Die Insurrectionen, being based upon additional
material obtained from the Marburg Archives.

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 253

the death against an alien tyranny. On May 2 he entered the
capital of the Duke of Anhalt-Dessau, publishing abroad that
he had come to overthrow the French domination, that he was
followed by an army of 13,000 men under Bliicher, that Prussia
had declared war upon France, and that a Prussian army
would shortly invade the territory of Westphalia. The news
came to Jerome, and Cassel was for many days in a state of
the wildest alarm. The major was at Halle, then at Halberstadt,
soon it was expected that he would march upon Cassel itself.
If his force was the vanguard of a Prussian army, would not
all the Prussian provinces rise ? Already it was reported that
recruits were freely joining him.

Everything, however, turned out unfortunately for Schill. He
had calculated on an Austrian victory on the Danube, on
Prussian support, on the assistance of the Hessian rebels, but
now he learnt that the Austrians were beaten, that the timid
Prussian government had declared him guilty of high treason,
confiscated his property and put a price upon his head, that
the Hessian revolt was crushed, and that overwhelming forces
were converging upon him. There was nothing for it but to
turn northwards and recross the Elbe. A few miles south of
Magdeburg the invaders met a detachment of General Michaud's
garrison, and in a lively skirmish lost seventy men and twelve or
thirteen officers. All hopes of taking the great fortress of
Magdeburg were shattered by this repulse, and the band of
invaders left Westphalia to escape into Mecklenburg.

Hardly had the excitement caused by these events subsided,
when the kingdom was threatened by a more serious peril.
The heir to the Duchy of Brunswick was the Duke of Brunswick-
Oels, fourth son of the famous Charles William Ferdinand.
An intrepid and resolute soldier, Brunswick was determined
to recover his ancestral domains, and collected round him
a band of fighting men, some 1,700 strong, to aid the design.
The Black Legion, or army of vengeance, was composed of
patriots and adventurers drawn from every source, com-
panions of Katte, Dornberg, and Schill, Prussian deserters,
franc-tireurs of the Pomeranian and Silesian campaigns, and
Gallophobes from every State of the Rheinbund. Reinforced
by an Austrian army and by the troops which had followed

254 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

the Elector of Hesse-Cassel into his Bohemian exile, Brunswick
entered Saxony at the head of 10,000 men. The opening
stage of the adventure was brilliantly successful. Dresden
and Leipzig fell into the hands of the invaders, and the
Electorate lay prostrate at their feet. But then the wheel
of fortune was reversed. Jerome beat the Austrians at
Waldheim on June 27, recovered Dresden on July 1, and
the armistice of Znaim, which followed immediately on the battle
of Wagram, withdrew from the Duke the co-operation of his
Austrian allies. A prudent man would have submitted to fate,
and packed up the black uniforms and lugubrious shakos for
use upon another occasion. It was clear that Austria was on
the brink of peace with Napoleon, and though there were
rumours of an English descent at Cuxhaven, there was no
certainty of co-operation in the west. Brunswick, however, was
not prepared for so tame a finale. While Jerome was in
Dresden, he determined to make a dart on Westphalia and
to call upon the subjects of his father to rally round the House
of Guelph. The officers and men of the Black Legion were
apprised of his intentions, and 1,300 foot, 650 horse, and
80 artillerymen elected to follow their leader on his desperate
raid against the French Empire. With this small force
the Duke crossed the Westphalian frontier, and entered
Halle, where he was warmly received. His great hope was
that the English might be in time to assist, and that the
Westphalians, who had responded so feebly to the call of
a Hessian colonel or a Prussian major, would rise at the
invitation of a reigning duke, a member of the ancient House
of Guelph. But a series of foiled revolts had bred caution
in the people and steeled the temper of the soldiery. At
Halberstadt on the night of July 29-30, the Black Legion
was confronted by the fifth Westphalian regiment of the line,
and, after a night of desperate but victorious street fighting,
lost 400 men killed and wounded, of whom eighteen were officers.
On July 31 the Duke entered his capital, and met with
a reception of mingled distrust, fear, and cordiality. It was in
vain that he won a small success against Rewbell on August 1,
a few miles outside Brunswick. On the next day the defeated
general effected a junction with Generals Gratien and Thielmann,

THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA 255

and the odds against the Duke became overwhelming. Neither an
English army nor a levee en masse of Brunswickers was at hand to
redress the balance, and there was no course left but flight.
Aided by a friendly peasantry the Black Legion gained the mouth
of the Weser, and sailed away in safety upon an English fleet.

If these movements had been simultaneous, if no one of them
had been divulged until the Austrian declaration of war, the
Kingdom of Westphalia might have gone down with a crash.
As it was, each movement in itself was so ill-designed and so
feeble that it enlisted very little active support. The imagina-
tions of men are naturally feeble, and it is difficult to stir them
with ideals when the actual is not wholly intolerable. It was
not until the evils of the Napoleonic regime had stamped
themselves deeply upon the common life, that the minds of
these patient Germans caught fire; not till they found their
trade throttled by the blockade, their purses emptied by the
fisc, their homes burdened by military billeting, their sons
carried away to the wars never to return, that they began
to feel that the yoke was more than they could bear. But in
1809 the government of the French had not displayed its
harshest features ; on the contrary it had created careers,
abolished abuses, conciliated interests, healed differences, excited
hopes. The Westphalians were on the whole prepared, albeit
perplexed by misgivings, regrets, and loyal memories, to give the
experiment a fair trial. Perhaps they were over slow to read
the signals of the Spanish revolt ; perhaps the habit of brute
obedience was too strongly rooted in the Hessian soldier to
permit the growth of a discriminating patriotism ; perhaps the
shopmen of Cassel valued too much the custom of a luxurious
Court, and the burgess was too habitually deferential to comfort
and to authority. In any case, in the short span of six months
the pinchbeck Kingdom of Westphalia had known and survived
seven leaders of revolts \

1 That there was a good deal of sympathy for the rebels even in Cassel
is clear from the account of F. Miiller, Kassel seit 70 Jahren, who tells us
that the picture of the Duke of Brunswick-Oels was in every house, and
that even in the booksellers' shops you could see pictures of Schill, Bruns-
wick-Oels, Hofer, and Pius VII. A song on the death of Schill was
openly sung in the streets.

CHAPTER XII

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS

f Si TAngleterre a la nation pour elle, ayons pour nous la legislation.' —
Napoleon.

If, as Napoleon said, experience is everything in administra-
tion, faith also goes for something. The French administrators
in Westphalia were not only experienced, but they had faith
in their own value. It is only necessary to read the letters of
Beugnot or the speeches and circulars of Simeon to see how
saturated men can become with the belief in the superiority of
the language and civilization of their own country. They
speak kindly, considerately, condescendingly, to the poor West-
phalians, explaining everything in the lucid French manner as
a master might expound a beautiful text to a class of stupid
and backward boys, now calling attention to a grace of phrase,
now to its inner logical coherence, now to its bearing on life.
The official letters and documents of this time have all the air
of being written by men who regarded themselves as mission-
aries of civilization, and who wish to impart the mysteries of
their creed. 'Nous avons VintentionJ wrote the Minister of
Justice when announcing a legal appointment, 6 de vous appeler
ici comme un missiormaire digne oVy fonder le culte nouveau de
la justice ! • f To found the new cult of Justice,' could any call
be more inspiring ?

One of the first articles of the new creed was the abolition of
feudalism. In France this had been effected hurriedly, and in
the turmoil of the Revolution all attempt to discriminate
between services which were the product of mediaeval servitude
and services which were the product of free contract had to be
abandoned. But in Westphalia, where the Crown was a large
landowner and the government by no means indifferent to the
support of the local nobility, legislation was less trenchant, and

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 257

the thirteenth clause of the constitution, which declared the
unconditional abolition of serfage, passed through the crucible
of successive legal refinements. By a decree of January 23,
1808, all labour services were preserved which were defined
either by deed or by recognizance in the rolls of the manor.
Similarly the fine or right of entry ( Weinkauf) due from the
peasant when he took up his copyhold was still to be acquitted
in cases where it was fixed either in deed or roll. The old
communal, municipal, and public corvees (Communal-Frohnden,
Burgvesten, and Landfrohnden) were maintained, but all such
services were capable of being redeemed by money payments ;
indeterminate services, the obligation of performing domestic
service in the master's house, personal corvees, heriots, and
marriage-dues were abolished, and the lord lost his control over
the education and the career of the peasant. With the
same idea of satisfying legitimate expectations, it was provided
that although entails were abolished, the heir in tail, born
before January 1, 1808, might receive the inheritance for him-
self alone and with the free right of disposition. Some
proprietors complained of these proceedings as too revolutionary.
The government replied with justice that, according to the
liberal principles of the Code Napoleon and of the act con-
stituting the Kingdom of Westphalia, all rights of serfage and
feudalism might have been suppressed, even the 'territorial
rights mingled with feudalism ' ; that the suppression had been
general in Genoa, Parma, Piacenza, and Tuscany ; but that the
Westphalian government had preferred an equitable tempera-
ment between the rigour of the laws and the respect due to
long possession. They had kept everything which they could
keep without violating principle1.

These changes, conservative though they were, could not fail
to cause a good deal of disturbance in the rural districts.
Peasants refused to work upon the land, and their masters
appealed to the law. Further decrees were accordingly issued
to interpret the decree of January 23, 1808, which abolished
serfdom. It was laid down that no corvee was to be considered
indeterminate (ungemessen) which was fixed either by reference
to the number of work-days or by reference to the size of the
1 Moniteur Westphalien, May 10, 1808.

FISHER S

258 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

area upon which work was to be done. All hunting services,
fixed or unfixed, were abolished save those which had for their
purpose the destruction of noxious beasts. Proprietors were
prohibited from buying or selling corvees, or demanding a
different kind of service from that originally designed. Nor
were any new corvees to be created. In doubtful cases the
burden of proof lay upon the peasant, and the service was to
be provisionally performed until the court had pronounced
upon the case.

A decree issued August 18, 1809, laid down a tariff for the
redemption of Church tithes and of those agricultural services
which were retained, but owing partly to the ignorance of the
peasant, partly to the lack of specie, and partly to the difficulty
of obtaining the requisite statistics as to the average prices of
corn and hay during the last thirty years, little was done to
redeem either the services or the tithes. In truth, the West-
phalian government failed to deal satisfactorily with a difficult
problem. Its piecemeal legislation was too favourable to
the landlord, and was not only productive of disturbance and
unrest, but also brought less substantial benefit to the peasantry
than might have been fairly expected. The redemption of
tithes and labour services was an idle flourish, so long as the
peasants were unable to borrow money upon easy terms, and it
was not until the formation of the Hessian rural bank in
1832 that the work of redemption really began *.

Agrarian individualism, agrarian mobility, and agrarian sub-
division was the note of the Civil Code. The prefects were
instructed to stimulate the abolition of rights of pasturage on
communal lands according to Article 815, which provided that
nobody could be constrained to remain in community (dans
Vindivision) and that partition could always be demanded.
The 'right of detraction' which penalized the acquisition of
property in new provinces was done away with. Fiefs were con-
verted into allods, and ' Erbvertrage ' or compacts to determine
the succession were abolished. But the King reserved to himself

1 Bulletin des lois du royaume de Westphalie, i. 334 ; ii. 190 ; iv. 108, 174 ;
Sugenheim, Geschichte der Aufhebung der Leibeigenschaft, 411 ff. ; Hilde-
brand, Jahrbucher fur Nationalokonomie wad Statistik, i. 412 ff.

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 259

the right to create hereditary titles and to authorize the
recipients to entail their lands to male descendants in the direct
line. Thus while the normal operation of the Code promoted
subdivision, a special class of property was created in the
'Majorat,' which, being inalienable and incapable of being
mortgaged, was designed to consolidate the position of the
princes, barons, and knights of Westphalia. Nor was it thought
advisable to give an unrestricted application to the rules of
inheritance as laid down by the Civil Code. The peasant
properties in Osnabruck, for instance, were so small as to be
incapable of subdivision consistently with the performance of
the services due from them, and the government, to protect its
own proprietary interests, was willing to preserve in certain
localities the old condition of things, such as the restriction
on alienation without the consent of the lord, and the customary
rules of inheritance.

Hand in hand with the liberation of agriculture came the
liberation of commerce. The 'jurandes' and 'maitrises' were
abolished, and their property passed to the Crown. Henceforth
any one might practise any trade upon taking out a patent at
a trifling cost.

The new system of justice was an even greater boon. An
official translation of the Code was prepared1, and the
professors of Halle and Gottingen eagerly set themselves to
lecture upon its contents. The French law of procedure, both
civil and criminal, was also introduced with some modifications
suggested by common sense or German tradition. The benefits
of uniformity, speed, and publicity recommended these new
codes. The Hanoverian litigant was no longer obliged to pay for
mountains of documents drawn up by grasping advocates ; the
inhabitants of the Prussian provinces were no longer placed at
the mercy of the juge (T instruction. The triple principle that
all criminal cases were to be heard in public ; that nobody was
to be condemned save by the verdict of a jury ; and that there
was to be no appeal from the decision of a criminal court, was
both new and welcome. The abolition of seigneurial jurisdic-

1 The official translation contained the German and French text,
accompanied by the Latin translation which had been made for the
Kingdom of Italy.

s 2

260 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

tion must have meant the removal of many ignorant and
oppressive sentences.

Lord Halifax wrote in a famous tract, 'The Character of
a Trimmer,1 that 'the laws depend as much upon the pipes
through which they are to pass as upon the fountain from
whence they flow.' In Westphalia, if the fountain of law was
French, the pipes were German, and it might perhaps have
been expected that the clear fluid would have been darkened or
obstructed in its transmission to the litigant by the ignorance,
by the learning, or by the ill-will of native judges. Yet all
witnesses concur in testifying that the French system, though
administered by German judges, worked from the first with
singular smoothness. ' M. Simeon,' wrote Reinhard to Cham-
pagny on August 10, 1809 \ 'by the liberality and width
of his mind has succeeded in completely regenerating the
judicial system, and in conciliating all suffrages. On no side
does one hear that his administration is embarrassed, although
no department of government has undergone so great a
change both in form and substance. The credit must partly
be attributed to the manner in which he is seconded, the
Kingdom of Westphalia in its Hve universities and in its
ancient dicasteries containing a great number of jurists, who
are familiar with all the new ideas, and who have made a
specially profound study of the Code Napoleon and the French
forms. M. Simeon has been zealously seconded, and even the
mass of the nation has recognized the excellence of the new
institutions.1 Three years later the same observer wrote that the
judicial system was working so well that one might have believed
that the Code Napoleon had been introduced for ten years.

We have an even more valuable piece of evidence in the
memoirs of Friedrich Karl von Strombeck, a lively and honest
writer, who reports upon the legal revolution from a German
standpoint. Von Strombeck at the time of the French
occupation of Brunswick was Chancellor (Abtei-Rath) of the
Abbey of Gandersheim, then governed by the Princess Augusta
Dorothea of Brunswick, a sister of the reigning duke. With
some pretensions to classical scholarship — he accomplished
a metrical translation of the elegies of Propertius — with
1 Memoir es du roi Jerome, iv. 290-1.

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 261

a taste for travel, a competent knowledge of French, and
the zeal for new things common to so many Germans of
his generation, von Strombeck was just the kind of man
to act as an intermediator between the two civilizations. As
a youth he had been familiar with the polished little circle
of emigres who had settled in Brunswick, and had practised his
French upon an archbishop, a pair of bishops, a marshal of
France, and a president of Parliament. A minor poet of the
sentimental order was almost compelled to sympathize with
the early enthusiasms of the French Revolution, and a visit
to Paris in 1805 converted Strombeck into a warm admirer of
the Emperor, and effected his introduction to the Civil Code.
The Prussian war came upon him like a thunder-clap. His
mistress the abbess fled to Rostock, his master the Duke
died of his wounds at Altona. The circumstances were
difficult, and von Strombeck behaved in a manner neither
discreditable nor heroic. He accompanied his mistress to
Rostock, visited his dying master, and then returned to ad-
minister the revenues of Gandersheim. But however much
he might regret the calamity which had befallen the progeny
of Henry the Lion, he was not long in finding consolations.
The French soldiers enlivened the city of Brunswick with a
ceaseless round of balls and entertainments, and the young
German ladies soon discarded patriotic scruples, to share the
fashionable pleasures of their polite conquerors. Strombeck
was not behindhand. He entertained one French officer at
'a small festivity,"' while another visited him almost every day,
accompanied him in his rides on his excursions to the Harz and
the Brocken, and received an invitation to stay at his country
place. Despatched to Cassel as one of the deputies of the
Duchy of Brunswick to congratulate the King on his accession,
von Strombeck was flattered by the amiability of the royal
pair. He was offered the prefectship of the Department of
the Ocker, but reflecting that the work of the office would be
too heavy to permit the discharge of his duties to the abbess,
he petitioned for a judicial post, and was made President
of the Civil Tribunal of Eimbeck, a new court whose jurisdic-
tion extended over Gandersheim and that portion of the Leine
department which lay between the Weser and the Harz.

262 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Here he experienced one of the purest of human pleasures,
the joy of creation. At first everything was to seek. There
were not enough copies of the Code to go round, the officials
did not know their business, the court was stowed away in
an inconvenient room in the Rathhaus, and until the new
procedure was introduced shift had to be made with the old.
Yet good will and a certain practical skill can do much, and
6 at the beginning of May our court was in so good a condition,
that several cases which had waited several years for decision in
the Hanoverian courts were terminated.' Strombeck was, in
fact, fortunately situated. He had studied the Civil Code
through and through at a time ' when to many other lawyers in
the land the existence of the book was hardly known ' ; he
could correspond at length with Simeon, the Minister of
Justice, who knew no German, and he was singularly free from
legal pedantry. Further, he had the advantage of being fully
impressed by the superiority of French law and French legal
procedure. So when the new procedure came into force on
March 1, 1809, he wrote some instructions and forms for the
justices, clerks, and ushers of his own district. These were after-
wards expanded and printed in a book entitled Formulare und
Anmerlcungen zu der Processordnung des Xonigreichs West-
phalen, which became the leading textbook on procedure in the
kingdom. Strombeck, in fact, set himself to be the Westphalian
oracle on the Codes. His library of French legal literature was
the largest in the kingdom ; his manual on Procedure in Cor-
rectional Cases had a wide sale; and, incited by him, his
brother Frederick Henry, a judge at Helmstadt, composed two
treatises, one upon the organization of French public trials, and
the other a handbook of Westphalian civil procedure.

When Hanover was annexed in 1810, Strombeck received
an invitation from Simeon to sit as President in the new
Court of Appeal about to be established at Celle. The new
court was composed almost entirely of members of the former
High Court of Appeal of Hanover, but a new spirit was
infused into its proceedings1. In the first year of its

1 Strombeck prints decisions of the court of Celle in his Rechtswissen-
schaft des Gesetzbuchs Napoleons, Braunschweig1, 1812.

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 263

installation the court gave 4,492 decisions. Such promptitude
had hitherto been unknown. The interminable pleadings were
cut short, and cases determined on the spot after hearing the
advocates on both sides. Litigation was a matter of months,
not years. Strombeck is a warm advocate of the merits of
orality, although it seldom happened that a really able or
eloquent barrister pleaded before him. He says that he found
it easier to attend, that he obtained a keener insight into the
heart of the matter when he had heard the actual voice of
the barrister than was possible under the old system, when the
judge had to sift masses of dry documents stuffed out with the
common Chancery forms. Orality was especially valuable in
small criminal cases, which at Eimbeck could be so disposed
of at the rate of half a dozen at a sitting. In the larger
criminal cases it was, he thought, equally important that the
accused should be brought face to face with his judge. Inno-
cent men are often condemned on the other system. On the
other hand, he is willing to admit that in civil cases the old
written methods may be more congenial, where the judges are
no longer in the bloom of youth, and have acquired habits of
leisurely and quiet consideration — the case of the majority of
German lawyers \

Yet there was a dark side to the history of the law courts
during the period of the Westphalian kingdom. The penal
laws which had prevailed in this part of Germany before
the French occupation were characterized by their mildness,
and there was little crime. But the introduction of conscrip-
tion brought in its train a new category of penal offences, the
commission of which was condoned by public sentiment, and
sharply punished by the law. It is no uncommon thing to read
in the Westphalian Moniteur of a father being sentenced to
a heavy fine or a year's imprisonment for having given shelter
to his son who had fled from the conscription or deserted the

1 It would appear that Simeon submitted a memoir to the Emperor
in which objections were urged against the jury, objections probably
prompted by the King or some of his German advisers. Napoleon replied
(June 24, 1808) that the jury of judgement must be established in
Germany both because enlightened people desired it, and for political
reasons. Corr. xvii. 328, no. 14,127.

264 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

colours. Edict after edict was passed to intensify the penalties
meted out to this luckless part of the population. On April
10, 1813, the penalty of death was declared against any one
' who by money or by intoxicating liquors shall procure, solicit,
or favour desertion.'' The penalty of desertion was death, and
by an edict of March 8, 1813, every conscript who did not
join within the required time was liable to be sentenced to
three years'* hard labour by a Military Council. These penalties,
it is true, were subsequently repealed and were exceptionally
severe.

The principle of religious toleration was part of the common
stock of revolutionary ideas, and it was applied in the Kingdom
of Westphalia. Indeed, with a Protestant queen and a Catholic
king, toleration had every chance of thriving. The Protestants
and Catholics, however, were so distributed in Germany after
the settlement of Westphalia that there were not many Catholics
in the Protestant, or Protestants in the Catholic districts. The
last musket in the war of religion had been fired off before
Charles I lost his head, and the work did not need to be done over
again. Fulda remained Catholic, Hesse was 'Reformed,1 the
Lutherans held sway in Hanover. The exercise of religious
rites was not prohibited to the cults which were in a minority,
but Lutherans and Catholics were excluded almost entirely from
offices of State in Hesse, while in the greater part of the Han-
overian territory a Catholic or a Calvinist would not have been
admitted to public employment. But the religious temperature
was low, and the territorial maxim 'Cuius regio, eius religio,'
though illogical and indefensible in theory, had proved to be
a workable and satisfactory compromise. There was, however,
one section of the community, powerful by reason of its wealth,
and yet both in the Catholic and Protestant districts treated as
a pariah class. These were the Jews. Their disabilities, save
in the Duchy of Brunswick, where under the enlightened rule
of the late Duke they had been treated with marked liberality,
were numerous and degrading. They were subjected to a
special tax, confined to special towns, excluded from the
schools, universities, and armies, and from all share in political
power. All these burdens and disabilities were removed
by the decree of January 27, 1808. By a^ later ordinance

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 265

(March 31, 1808), a consistory was established for the super-
vision of the Hebrew cult, and one of the duties enjoined
upon this body was to see that ' the rabbis and schoolmasters
profess under all circumstances obedience to the laws, and
specially to those which are relative to the defence of the
country ; that they should teach that military service is a sacred
duty, during which the law dispenses from those religious
observances which should not be compatible with it ; and that
prayers should be recited in all the synagogues for the King and
his family.' The Jewish community was profuse in its thanks,
and their spokesman, the eminent and liberal Jacobson, observed
that 'the songs of Zion would now freely resound upon the
mountains of Westphalia.' The State gained some devoted
soldiers who spent their lives upon distant battlefields, and the
penurious King made frequent drafts upon the long purses of
his Hebrew financiers.

The Kingdom of Westphalia, like many other parts of
Germany, was full of well-endowed cathedral chapters, abbeys,
and monasteries, admission to which was confined to persons
of noble blood. The statutes of these bodies were now revised
in a democratic direction, and it was stipulated that a tithe of
the revenues of all prebends, chapters, abbeys, convents, and
priories situated in the kingdom should be paid to the State.
But the indigent government was unable for long to content
itself with so modest a share of these inviting endowments.
On May 13, 1809, six nunneries were confiscated, and it is fair
to add that the ejected nuns were properly provided for. A year
later a general edict of confiscation swept all the abbeys,
priories, and chapters of the kingdom into the treasury net,
exception only being made in favour of the foundation of
Wallenstein at Homberg, and such institutions as could be
proved to exist for public instruction. It would seem that
no great harm was done to the cause of piety, learning,
or charitable endeavour, and that the money now available
for masquerades had formerly been devoted to the support of
indolence.

That the Church should be subordinate to the State was
a cardinal maxim of the Napoleonic policy. The candidates
for ordination had to be submitted to the King's approval, and

266 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

the clergy were required to keep the civil registers, to pray for
the King, to read royal decrees on the conscription and the
blockade, and to celebrate the royal and imperial birthdays
and the victories of the French arms. A circular of the Minister
of the Interior to the bishops lays it down that ' one of the first
duties of the clergy is to preach obedience to the sovereign,
without which there is no public tranquillity or individual
security."' Yet although the Westphalian State regulated the
constitution of the Protestant synods and consistories, and
nominated the Catholic bishops, it had not a complete control
of the Catholic organization. The Westphalian metropolitan
was the Prince-Primate, a dignified and independent member of
the Confederation of the Rhine, and while this was so, there
could be no independent Church in Westphalia, in the sense
in which such an institution existed in France. In the autumn
of 1812, King Jerome stirred this question of an independent
national Church for Westphalia. It was a very delicate question,
one of those questions which alarm susceptibilities rather than
affect interests. But King Jerome stirred it. He proposed
that the Bishop of Corvey should be made Archbishop of West-
phalia, that the church of St. Martin at Cassel should be
converted into a Westphalian cathedral, and that the pensioned
canons of Paderborn and Hildesheim should form the new
chapter. But the Emperor would hear nothing of it. The
Duke of Bassano was instructed to write that in the condition
of things it was inopportune to convert the chief Protestant
church in Cassel into a Catholic cathedral ; that even in ordinary
times such measures would require ripe consideration ; that it
was always very dangerous to meddle with religion ; that
attempts of the kind embittered people ; that one did not
know how far things might go ; and that since Cassel was
Protestant, it was well to leave the Protestants in peace. The
King was distinctly told that if he persisted in the project he
would meet with the displeasure of his brother, and finding little
support in his own council, dropped the plan.

If the Church in Westphalia was controlled, it was not
enriched by its French master. The salaries of the lower clergy,
already small enough, were reduced, and were also paid with
great irregularity. Many of the clergy were very hardly hit

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 267

by the State bankruptcy in 1812, and the Church property of
several communes was through this and other causes reduced
to about a third of its previous amount. It should be re-
membered also that the Church was now subject to taxation
from which it had been previously exempt. And these material
evils were accompanied, it would seem, by a certain lack of
social prestige. In every village the Landprediger had now
a rival, if not a superior, in the mayor. New authorities, new
areas, a new spirit broke down his old, and perhaps unhealthy,
monopoly of village power. Before his own rustic congregation
he would be exposed to many humiliations. The mayor would
requisition his horse, the tax-collector would distrain his cow,
the mayor's secretary would quarter two French officers and
their servants on his parsonage. He would be forced to send
his gardener to work on the fortifications of some garrison town,
and the village would know it, and feel that the old authority
was gone, never to return 1. The French occupation is also
credited with having produced a decline in church-going, and
a large increase in the number of illegitimate births. It is
probable too that the clergy, especially in Hesse, suffered in
consideration from the homage it was compelled to pay to
the new dynasty, for though it is true that several preachers
refused to read the royal decrees or to give out the prayers for
the King, on the whole the churches accepted the situation in
Westphalia as they accepted it elsewhere. It was not from the
pulpit that the cry of liberation proceeded 2.

The problems of poor-relief and the principles of charitable
administration had occupied serious attention in many German
towns ever since the beginning of the sixteenth century, and
they were perhaps more adequately understood in the Protestant
part of Germany than in the regions dominated by the Roman

1 Blicke eines Landpredigers auf die vergangene Zeit ; Neue Fakkeln,
vii. 73.

2 Pastor Gehrens admits that he preached several political sermons
to which the government might have taken exception. But this was
in Hesse (Gehrens, Dreimalige Verhaftung, 63). In the Prussian provinces
the clergy would seem to have been more docile. A writer in Neue
Fakkeln (v. 34 ff.) knew one priest e who even before the Peace of Tilsit
•prayed aloud in the pulpit for Frederick William and Alexander.'

268 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Church. It is evident, however, that' the administrators of
Westphalia found much to condemn in the arrangements
which had hitherto prevailed for the administration of charity.
There were a large number of institutions and endowments,
but they were neither correlated one to another nor guided by
common principles. The mobility of labour was not understood
in the Middle Ages, and the mobility of pauperism would have
been regarded as a crime against municipal self-sufficiency.
A strict law of settlement is the natural product of close
industrial oligarchies, of guarded vested interests, and of urban
autonomy ; and it is only when local ties are loosened, when
large markets take the place of small ones, and industry and
commerce are liberated from their fetters, that the principle of
a free settlement becomes a necessity of poor-law organization.

By a decree of March 24, 1809, every commune was made
responsible for the poor who had resided a year in it. The
poor who had not obtained a settlement by a year's residence were
charged to the parish in which they were born, or to that in
which they had last obtained a settlement. Every applicant
for relief was instructed to apply to the mayor, who, after satis-
fying himself that the pauper could not obtain support from
his own family, could take one of three steps. If the applicant
were old or infirm he would be sent to a hospital ; if able-bodied,
he was put to work ; if a child, he might be sent either to a
workshop or to a school. The support, so far as possible, was
to be paid in kind. If the commune were too poor to bear the
charge, the mayor was to appeal to the sub-prefect, and the
sub-prefect to the prefect. The prefects were reminded that
6 every charitable institution which did not tend to the extinc-
tion of mendicity departed from the principles of good govern-
ment.' A central bureau of charity was established at Cassel,
with instructions not only to secure a better employment of
charitable funds, but 'to destroy and diminish causes of in-
digence by giving to the poor the habit and taste for work, and
by teaching the children a trade.' It was to report progress
every three months to the Minister of Justice and Interior. By
establishing an easy law of settlement, as well as by laying
down uniform and sober principles of charitable administration,
the Westphalian government conferred a lasting benefit on the

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 269

country. Unfortunately the times were exceptionally difficult,
and a severe strain was put upon a new and not entirely perfect
system. The internal disturbances caused by the abolition of
the feudal system, by the anti-Napoleonic propaganda and by
conscription, the decline of trade and commerce which resulted
from the continental system and the requisitions of the troops,
produced a large amount of destitution and vagabondage, and
severe edicts were issued against able-bodied beggars. The
commune proved, as in England, to be too small a unit for
effective administration, and there was a general disinclination
among the villages to submit to a new and burdensome im-
position. The stipulation that the assistance given to the
poor was, if possible, to be rendered in kind was intended to
discourage pauperism, but in reality it discouraged the rate-
payer by rendering the rate an irritating and recurrent drain
upon his resources. Over large tracts of Westphalia there were
then no regular villages, and the isolated householder was re-
quired to cart a weekly contribution of bread or vegetables over
many miles of bad road to feed some pauper who had become
charged to his commune, and for whose existence and well-
being he regarded himself as in no wise responsible. The
grumblings of ratepayers are perennial, and may generally be
disregarded, but there is some reason for thinking that the
Westphalian machinery, though a great improvement on any-
thing which had hitherto existed, was incapable of meeting all
the problems created by a system which uprooted so many men
from industry and agriculture, and then, after five years of
barrack life, returned them with loosened lives to their country.
The French had long lost the feeling for local autonomy, and
the efforts to decentralize the government of the Ancien Regime
had not had time to fructify, before the revolution supervened.
That catastrophe eliminated the aristocracy, sowed hate and
jealousy in every village, and prevented any further develop-
ment of the constitution on the lines laid down by Turgot and
Necker. A centralized bureaucracy was a necessity for France,
being, as it were, not only a kind of anaesthetic or healing drug,
but also the elementary condition for the preservation of all
that was precious in the revolutionary movement. Among the
lethargic inhabitants of Westphalia the mission of the bureau-

270 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

cracy was not to calm but to excite, not to preserve but to
communicate. There were tenacious and irrational customs to
be eradicated, bad and confused methods of administration to
be reformed, innumerable local differences to be transcended.
It was necessary that the inhabitants should be shaken out of
that lazy acquiescence in the legacies of the past which had
become habitual to them. The whole country required an
education in business habits. It was time that questions of
practical administration should be decided by the light of reason
and convenience rather than by laborious reference to ancient
records. The new administration did all this. It was worked
very largely by Prussian officials who had already acquired the
rudiments of the governing art. It was instructed by the
circulars of the sage Sim6on, and there is very good evidence
for the statement that the prefects and sub-prefects were
capable and honest men. On the other hand, it was to a certain
extent vitiated by the fact that the prefects were permitted
to make a profit out of their allowance for official expenses —
a plan which encouraged the employment of cheap and corrupt
clerks in the lower rungs of the administration.

In after years wholesale charges of corruption were brought
against the Westphalian bureaucracy, and some special in-
dictments are too pointed and circumstantial to be mere figments
of the enemy1. Some corruption then we must assume, but,
on the other hand, there was abundant display of honourable
activity. It was a happy thought of C. D. Bode to collect the
222 circulars and ordinances issued by the prefect of the De-
partment of the Werra during the course of a single year (1810).
A substantial volume is filled with these documents, which
present a lively picture of the various cares of a Westphalian
prefect2. Now he is issuing a manifesto in favour of clover;
now he prescribes the operations of the woodman ; now he is
putting pressure upon the reluctant communes to defray the
expense of their registers of the Civil State ; now he amalgamates

1 Das Kdnigreich Westphalen und die Franzosen, W. Wagener, 1813
(a violent diatribe), and Neue Fakkeln (Deutschland, 1814), i. 31 ; iii.
1-12.

2 Verhandlungen der koniglichen Prafectur des Werradepartements , C. D.
Bode, 1812.

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 271

the charitable funds of Marburg. We may well believe with
a satirical writer that the Boeotian mind was fairly confused with
orders so novel, so frequent, and so copious. A picture has
been drawn for us of the Westphalian village under the new
dispensation. Twice a week the canton messenger came with
a packet of official despatches. The village schoolmaster must
copy them in his presence, while the school-children take holiday.
Then the mayor was summoned and the municipal council, and
there was deliberation. It was in vain that the parish priest
represented that the school was being neglected, for the school-
master was now the mayor's secretary, and could snap his
fingers at the consistory. As the mayor was often an illiterate,
and the council was a knot of rustics drawn from the plough,
the business proceeded slowly and suspiciously. 'What the
others wish, that I wish too, only I will not be the first to sign ' :
such was the common refrain. Nor was the interpretation of
the documents a thornless path. A village municipal council had
to send into a town a mile distant for an explanation of the word
adjoumiren, for the new government had its own terminology.
And meanwhile the school-children remained untaught. The
old-fashioned folk looked on all these busy doings with great
disdain, and there must have been many a knowing and un-
friendly nod when commune after commune declared a deficit.
There was, indeed, some ground for the contention that the
whole machinery was too expensive, both in time and money, for
rural needs. If so, the French committed a grave error, for it
is the catastrophe of political idealism that slow men dislike
quick ways, and that there is nothing which easy-going people
resent more keenly than a government which is too good for
them *.

1 In the Archives of Marburg there is a collection of communal budgets
which forms an unfavourable commentary on the system. Thus every
one of the nine communes of the Canton of Friedewald (district Hersfeld,
department Werra) shows a large deficit in 1811. The village of Friede-
wald (population 995) is typical. Its total income amounts to 126 fr.
80 c, its expenditure to 638 fr. 13 c. The main items of expenditure
are : Salary of mayor, 310 fr. 80 c. ; office expenses of mayoralty, 75 fr. ;
communal tax-collector, 18 fr. ; subscription to the Bulletin of Laws,
12 fr. ; subscription to the Departmental Bulletin, 8 fr. 9 c.

272 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Perhaps also it may seem to us that the principle of political
centralization was carried too far in this government. Let us
suppose that a master has to be appointed to a primary school.
There must first be an examination held by the pastor or the
consistory. If the candidate be declared fit, then the patron
or the commune recommend him for election, and the mayor or
the sub-prefect present his name and qualifications to the prefect.
The prefect reports to the Director-General of Public Instruction.
If there should be no division of opinion, the Director-General,
who is a member of the royal council, is competent to decide
by himself. But if the competence of the candidate should be dis-
puted, then he would be bound to refer it to the ministry, and the
whole question would be thrashed out by the highest dignitaries
of the State \ Or, again, let us suppose that a piece of com-
munal land has to be acquired or alienated, or let out on lease.
There must be (1) a valuation by experts ; (2) a recommendation
of the municipal council ; (3) a reasoned recommendation of
the mayor of the commune and the canton ; (4) a memoir of
the sub-prefect ; (5) a memoir of the prefect ; (6) a report of the
Minister of the Interior ; (7) a debate in the Council of State ;
and (8) the consent of the King. Our first impulse is to con-
demn in a most unhesitating fashion so complex a piece of
mechanism. In a land of expensive men and women, accustomed
to high standards of government, and to all the material
facilities, the citizen moves the government, not the government
the citizen. The vigorous man of the town settles down on
some drowsy country-side, and at once the air is filled with com-
plaints of the posts, the roads, the drains, and the beggars. He
insists upon improvements, he worries officials, and by degrees
he reconstitutes the administrative environment to suit his brisk
and various appetite. But in Westphalia there were no ex-
pensive men and women, no private self-appointed missionaries
of the material facilities. The missionary of the higher and the
more expensive civilization was the government. From the
very necessities of the case, the government was forced to be
didactic. It was like a schoolmaster who has to teach a new
lesson to an ignorant class, of whose characters, attainments, and

1 Von Muller to the Minister of the Interior, Jan. 17, 1809 (Marburg
Archives).

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 273

dispositions he is imperfectly informed. An unceasing vigilance,
a luxury of precautions, a great central storage of driving power,
were necessities. Every appointment had to be scrutinized where
the candidates were ill-known and might possibly be disaffected.
Every act of the most subordinate official had to be carefully
prescribed. As the State was putting an unwonted strain upon
local revenues and local authorities, as it was insisting upon
administrative luxuries and expensive standards, while at the
same time it was abridging the resources of the towns by the
abolition of guilds and municipal excise duties, it was natural
that it should be concerned for the careful management of
communal revenues. In a small kingdom like Westphalia,
such a measure of centralization does not involve insuperable
difficulties. A short journey would bring every prefect face
to face with his minister. Indeed, the central government was
really an office for transacting local affairs. The most important
department, that of the Interior, was, as we have seen, governed
by a German and manned by German clerks, and it was
currently said to err upon the side of sympathetic conservatism.
The system was not, then, wholly lacking in elasticity. On the
contrary, it was often intelligently adjusted to local needs.
A salient example of this is afforded by the story of the centimes
additionnels. The centimes additionnels were taxes levied for
local purposes in the form of so many centimes to every franc of
national taxation paid into the central government. Financiers
still dispute the expediency of raising local revenue in this way.
It may be urged in favour of it, that it is simple, that it in-
volves only one assessment instead of at least two, and that the
persons who pay most to the imperial exchequer are those who
are fitted to make the heaviest contribution to local purposes.
On the other hand, if there be any inequality in the incidence
of imperial taxation, the centimes additionnels exaggerate instead
of correcting it. Again, local needs vary, but the centimes
additionnels provide a uniform contribution, and it may well
happen that a district which contains few rich men is just the
one which requires the largest amount of local expenditure.
But whatever be the arguments for and against it, the system
had been adopted in France, and it was copied in Westphalia.
It provoked a general outcry. It was said that the local charges

FISHER T

274 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

were too new, too high, and too unevenly distributed. The
government had no doubt at first attempted to heap too many
charges on the departmental account. The official expenses
of the prefect, sub-prefect, the hospitals and prisons, the churches
and schools, the gendarmerie, and the courts were all to be paid
out of local taxes. This was all very French, but it was seen
to be unwise. First the local charges were strictly limited and
defined, but even so they exceeded 2,000,000 francs. Then
in 1810 the centimes additionnels were abolished, and the de-
partmental and cantonal costs were taken over by the public
treasury ; while finally, in 1812, a compromise was arrived at, and
part of the local expenditure, amounting to about 500,000 francs,
was retransferred to the departments, and met by the imposition
of five additional centimes to the franc. But no fiscal triumphs
were possible in Westphalia. The extravagance of the Court
and the military requisitions forbade them. It was calculated
that in 1813 alone 50,000,000 francs were expended in the
kingdom on the French troops, largely in the shape of re-
quisitions, a burden that fell exclusively upon the communes.
It is no wonder that the sum of local indebtedness mounted
up rapidly, and that every centime demanded by the central
government was grudgingly paid. This is the simple reason
why so many excellent schemes for public works remained in
the sphere of pure literature.

Amidst much that is disappointing, one characteristic victory
may be noted. By February 1810, 30,000 reluctant and
suspicious Westphalians had been vaccinated by their French
conquerors. A central committee was established for the pro-
pagation of this new prophylactic, and vaccination was made
compulsory for entry into universities, public schools, and work-
shops. The annual tables submitted to the government attest
a solid success for sanitary science, which may perhaps be
partially reduced in our estimation when we recollect that the
institution of military conscription provided a constant supply
of patient victims to the doctor's lancet.

So far as the internal administration went there was but
one serious blot : the high police, placed under the separate
control of a so-called Secretaire des Commandements, who had
all the attributions of a Minister of Police. The institution

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 275

was in itself repugnant to the German character, and it was
worked in Westphalia with a singular amount of unnecessary
friction. Neither M. de Bercagny, the first chief of the
police, a gentleman who had been in turn a soldier, a
monk, a general, a vicar, and an army contractor, nor M. de
Bongars his successor, knew a word of German, and many of
their subordinates were in the same position. But if their
information was generally either deficient or ludicrously mis-
taken, their interference and espionage were harassing and
persistent. Simeon told Reinhard, in 1809, that complaints
were raining in on all sides against Bercagny, and that every
one accused him of exercising his office with a view to
making a fortune in two days. The opening of private letters
by the police was carried so far that no one dared trust to the
post. There was scarcely a prominent man in the kingdom
who was not ' shadowed,' and, as under the later Roman Empire,
an odious tribe of informers battened on the system. A hare
could not be brought into the market of Cassel unless provided
with a 'certificate of origin'; every blind violin-player had to
pay four sous a day. A bear-leader or an ape-leader was com-
pelled to buy a patent. The police were ordered to confiscate
every work that ran counter to 'the principles of the con-
stitution, to the respect due to the ruler, to public tranquillity,
or to the different religions.' By such harassing and trivial
regulations the French name was made odious. 'The high
police,' wrote Reinhard, ' is at war with all the ministries save
that of Foreign Relations, and with all the departmental ad-
ministrations ; it renders irremediable the schism between the
French and the Germans by exalting the fears and suspicions of
the one, and inspiring in the other either indignation or terror V
The Universities of Germany occupied a place in the national

1 German writers are never tired of expatiating on the venality and
oppression of the Westphalian police ; cf. Neue Fakkeln ; Wagener,
Le Royaume de Westphalie. Perhaps, however, the most instructive
passages are to be found in the correspondence of Reinhard (Revue His-
torique,xx. 347-8). ' General Bongars issues a circular (May 17, 1811)
to all the mayors of the kingdom ordering the immediate arrest of all
suspected persons. . . . M. Savagner . . . was arrested last Thursday night
in his bed, and his papers visited. The next day he was informed of
his dismissal and banishment from Westphalia.'

t2

276 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

life very difficult for the Frenchmen of the Napoleonic age
to understand. Though poorly endowed and often strictly
dependent on the State, they exerted an influence over German
opinion which was made all the greater by the unattractiveness
of political employment, by the emptiness of the public press,
and by the natural tendency of the educated Teutonic mind to
abstract speculation and abstruse research. A series of secular
changes had transformed a number of narrow theological and
legal seminaries into places of deep liberal and independent
learning. While in the Catholic south the abolition of the
Jesuit order had placed the machinery of education in the hands
of the State, in the north the Protestant consistories had been
obliged to concede their control to the lay authority. The
substitution of the State for the consistory in the Protestant
universities of the north, and for the Jesuits in the Catholic
universities of the south, was indeed attended by some disadvan-
tages. The professors, who were both appointed and dismissed
by the State, were forced to submit their programmes half-yearly
to the government together with a list of their auditors. They
were rebuked or praised by a Minister of Education according as
they were supposed to have evinced idleness or zeal, and rescripts
were issued by the government, directing the number, the sub-
ject-matter, and sometimes even the tone of their lectures. But
the substitution of State for sectarian control was, nevertheless,
a step on the road to liberty. The governments of the eighteenth
century were, for the most part, more tolerant and more en-
lightened than the religious bodies, and their influence was
exerted towards freeing the universities from the pedantry and
obscurantism which had hitherto checked the progress of science.
The accession of Frederick II in 1740 brought with it the
honourable recall of the philosopher Christian von Wolff to the
University of Halle, from which he had been expelled in 1728 on
the charge of rationalism, and from that moment Halle, though
closely controlled by a niggardly government, though destitute
of university buildings, and less richly endowed than the poorest
of modern Oxford colleges, stood forward as the champion of
free inquiry. While the connection with the State brought an
increasing measure of liberty, the titles of Hofrath and Geheim-
rath awarded to the most distinguished savants served to

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 277

give a prestige to the teaching profession out of all pro-
portion to its miserable endowments. An attempt was made
to bring university studies into relation with national needs,
and while the old Latin disputations were discarded in favour
of lectures given in the German tongue (a cardinal reform in-
augurated by Halle and followed by Gottingen), the university
course was lengthened to a period of three years (1804) for
Prussian subjects who wished to enter the government service.
In this, as in many other educational reforms, Prussia set an
example speedily followed by other States.

These were in the main reforms of machinery, but all through
the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary period a new spirit was
breathing itself into the intellectual life of Germany which did
far more to transform the ideal of culture than all the princes
and bureaucracies. This spirit was not French or Latin ; it
was Greek. The renascence of Hellenism which we associate
with the names of Winckelmann and Heyne and F. A. Wolf
was not merely an affair of learned scholarship; it provided
ideals for art and life, a new set of canons for literary
criticism, and a new view of the scope and possibilities of
education. Together with this Hellenistic movement another
intellectual tendency, equally profound, was beginning to assert
itself in Germany. The earlier philosophers of the century
had been mainly nurtured upon mathematics and natural
sciences ; and physics, mathematics, and cosmology formed
an essential part of a course of lectures delivered by a pro-
fessor of philosophy. The influence of this juxtaposition upon
the character of metaphysical and moral speculation was very
marked. The mind regarded as a fixed product of nature
was analysed with a view to the discovery of the postulates of
thinking, while the analysis of character as a fixed product was
expected to yield the postulates of morality. Neither Wolff
nor Kant cared for history, nor were their modes of thought
influenced by it. The genesis of moral ideas, the development
of psychological processes in time, the revelation of Nature in
events, were subjects to which they did not turn their attention.
The new thinkers, however, Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling, had
received a literary education, and were essentially historical in
their treatment of philosophical problems. Striking with the

278 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

wand of history the hard and stoical rock which Kant had
planted on the ground, they made it to flow with streams of
obscure but comforting eloquence. They found everywhere
spirit, reason, order, and looked upon the history of the world
as upon a kind of Divine drama, in which every act and every
scene has its place and significance. While the doctrine of the
Trinity was shown to have a deep philosophical import, humanity
was assured that it was inevitably destined to realize a large and
larger measure of the Divine Spirit. The writings of these
thinkers definitely mark the triumph of the historical method.

Meanwhile increased attention was being devoted to the
problem of pedagogy. As the learning of the learned became
more deep and vital, they began to realize how cheap and
miserable was the mechanism which went under the guise of
school teaching. There were in Germany in the middle of the
eighteenth century three kinds of public school : the village
school, the Latin school in the towns, and ' the learned school,'
Gelehrte Schule. The village school was generally kept by the
clerk of the parish, and did not aim at providing more than the
most elementary instruction. In most of the small towns
the Latin school, which had not advanced beyond the standard
fixed in the sixteenth century, was the only public school
available. It would generally be held in an old broken-
down monastery of the sixteenth century, and the impecunious
schoolmaster would eke out his miserable pittance by conducting
his flock to help in the choral services at marriages and burials.
The methods of punishment were drastic and Orbilian ; the
curriculum and the textbooks two centuries behind the age;
the informing spirit ecclesiasticism cut and dried.

The condition of the Gelehrte Schule, which aimed at providing
a liberal education for boys who wished to enter the learned
professions, was in some instances more satisfactory. It had
been improved by the action of the State in Brunswick, in
Electoral Saxony, in Prussia, and in Brunswick-Luneburg.
But, for the most part, these schools remained till the last
decade of the eighteenth century in a state of great' inefficiency.
The nobles and the wealthier burghers had long ceased to send
their boys to school, and preferred to employ private tutors.
The schoolmaster was miserably paid, and his profession despised.

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 279

The curriculum was narrow and stifling, and no attention was
paid to the idiosyncrasies of the boys or to the development of
real intellectual interests in the school. It is a standing disgrace
to the Germany of Frederick the Great that it did so little for
popular education.

It is not the least of the services of French naturalism that
it directed attention to the problem of pedagogy. To restore
the family to its natural and wholesome state, to reassert the
legitimate influence of the parent over the child, and to sweeten
and enliven the life of the young, became an object of general
concern in an age which believed that man was naturally good,
and that the restoration of domesticity was the best antidote to
social artifice. To these aspirations the Ernilius of Rousseau
gave a dazzling embodiment. That famous treatise contains
much that is both unwise and unpractical, but it gives ex-
pression to some very important truths. That the influence of
character is more important than that of precept, that education
begins with the family, that the mind of the child should be
drawn on gently and not compelled to another's will with harsh-
ness, that instruction is better conveyed through visible symbols
or actual experiences than through mere words — these truths are
mingled with a shallow psychology which sees nothing in a child
but self-love, and nothing in the principle of authority which
can give tone to character. The seed scattered with so fantastic
a gesture produced in Germany a flowering crop of educational
theory. Almost all the deepest minds, Herder and Goethe,
Jean Paul Richter and von Basedow, Heyne and Wolf, concerned
themselves with the problem, either in its theoretical or in its
practical aspect. It became one of the objects of the universities
to provide skilled teachers for the public schools. At Gottingen
Gesner founded a seminarium philologicum for the purpose of
training teachers, and the influence of this distinguished scholar
was imprinted in the school ordinance for Hesse-Cassel issued
in 1775. A similar institution was founded in 1779 at Helm-
stadt, and its members trained not only in polite learning but
also in the theory of teaching. In the famous Philanthropinum
at Dessau, founded in 1779, Basedow carried into practice his
theory of undenominational education, and of the teaching of
dead and living languages through the medium of conversation.

280 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

The gymnasium at Weimar was revolutionized by no less
a person than Herder, who widened the programme of studies
by the introduction of history, geography, and statistics,
abolished or limited the use of the rod, and encouraged the
development of special aptitudes. The educational reformers
aimed in the main at three objects : to substitute a real and
quickening education for the mechanical drill of learning
grammar and catechism by heart ; to train a supply of cultured
teachers ; and to humanize school discipline. In the course of
the campaign it was realized that the training of boys destined
for commerce and retail trade should be different from that given
to boys who were intending to enter one or other of the learned
professions. The spectacle of an intending shopkeeper loading
his memory with the Thesaurus of Gruterus or Gronovius, while
his mind was untinged with mathematics, geography, or
elementary science, was familiar and afflicting, but it was not
until the middle of the century that anything was done towards
remedying the evil. In 1747 Hecker founded at Berlin the
first Realschule, or modern school, in Germany, for the purpose
of instructing boys not destined for the learned professions.
A Realschule was founded at Brunswick in 1754, and at Helm-
stadt in 1755, and an active educationalist, E. Trapp, professor
of pedagogy at Halle from 1779 to 1783, and then in the
Ministry of Education at Brunswick from 1786 to 1790, threw
himself into the movement, decrying the acquisition of languages
as a medium of education.

The starting of these modern schools was not only a benefit
to the class which frequented them, but it was a necessary con-
dition for the advance of the public classical schools. In what-
ever town there was a Realschule, there the Gelehrte Schule was
only frequented by boys for whom a good classical education
was a real necessity. The growth of these modern schools was,
however, slow, and the educational dualism which now obtains
so completely in Germany was far from being fully developed
by the end of the eighteenth century. All that can be said is
that the main lines were sketched out.

The enlarged conception of classical studies acted, of course,
most directly upon the classical schools. In 1736 Ernesti had
passed a severe condemnation upon the system of teaching the

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 281

dead languages which then prevailed, when the ancient languages
were studied as providing a museum of elegant phrases and
flowers of speech, and it was more important to chatter about
Salmasius and Casaubon than to realize the beauties of Homer
and Virgil. The Thesaurus had taken the place of the text,
and to the Thesaurus was added the commentary. It was a
revelation when Gesner, in 1737, laid down the thesis that the
value of the ancient authors was that they trained taste and
literary insight, and that the object of a classical education was
not linguistic mimicry, but a good general knowledge of anti-
quity, of its poetry and art, its eloquence and pathos, its
thoughts and manners. The great classical scholars of a later
generation diffused this liberal spirit not merely through the
universities, but also through many of the schools in the region
which surrounded them. They trained the masters, they wrote
the textbooks and commentaries, they were consulted by town
councils as to the choice of teachers, in many cases they were
invited to superintend or reorganize particular schools. The
land-school at Ilfeld and the gymnasium at Gottingen were
chiefly controlled by Heyne himself, and the correspondence
of the greatest of European scholars is full of solicitude about
the smallest details of scholastic administration *.

It may be asked whether under the circumstances Germany
in general or the Kingdom of Westphalia in particular had any-
thing to gain educationally from the French conquest. The
two great desiderata of the universities were liberation from
State control and more ample endowments. The Napoleonic
regime was favourable neither to the one nor to the other of
these requirements. If the governments of Hanover and Hesse
chastised their professors with whips, it might be expected that
the government of Napoleon would chastise them with scorpions.
What educational liberty, or Lehrfreiheit, had been left to
the University of France ? What chance was there that the
liberty accorded to Germany would be more extensive ? In
everything which pertained to the substance and method of
university education, Germany was now far superior to France.
In France the revolution which paralysed education had been

1 Paulsen, Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts aufden deutschen Schulen
und Universitdten.

282 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

succeeded by the Empire which paralysed thought. In Germany
a new literature, a new philosophy, a new humanism, a new peda-
gogy had been the product of a generation. In France there was
no divinity, no philosophy, no Greek, no political science. There
was only Chateaubriand, Barante, and the Moniteur. In Germany
there were all the kings of European scholarship and thought.

It must, however, be admitted that while the intellectual
atmosphere of Germany was charged with novelty, the political
conditions were unfavourable to any very rapid or concerted
improvement. A vigorous university like Gottingen, which
had become the greatest school in Europe, not only for classical
antiquity but for legal, political, and economical studies, was
a bright centre of light, but its rays did not penetrate every-
where. The public schools were controlled by the municipal
authorities, and municipal authorities are often impervious to
the higher culture. In the south of Germany little progress
had as yet been made in scholastic reform, and, as happens in
a country broken up into small political units, there was not
only the greatest inequality in educational advance, but also an
excessive number of old and unflourishing institutions. The
most, therefore, that might be expected from the French, was
that with their genius for administration and their sense of
symmetry, they might level inequalities, concentrate endow-
ments, and introduce some uniform scheme both of popular and
of technical education. So might the dislocation caused by
war and conquest have been balanced by some tangible good.

The Kingdom of Westphalia contained no fewer than five
universities, Gottingen, Halle, Marburg, Helmstadt, and Rin-
teln ; the first two famous, the third respectable, while the fourth
and fifth were small and unimportant. Of these learned bodies,
Halle had invited the wrath of Napoleon during the Prussian
war of 1806, and had seen its lecture-halls closed and its
students dispersed. Specialty designed as it was for the training
of Prussian civil servants, the University suffered severely in
popularity by its incorporation in the Westphalian kingdom;
and when its activity was renewed by permission of the Emperor
in May, 1808, it was found that the attendance of students had
shrunk to a fourth of its accustomed figure 1.

1 Steffens, Was ich erlebte.

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 288

The King was inclined to manifest an interest in bodies
which reflected so much distinction on his State. He visited
Gottingen five times, gave 200,000 francs to the observatory,
and presented the University with some astronomical instru-
ments which had been of service to him during his cruises at
sea, and which he naively assumed would be of equal value to
the pupils of Gauss and of Mayer. The servile Moniteur
remarks upon the occasion of the first visit that the young King
carefully questioned the professors as to the course of their
studies ; but a less trammelled observer informs us that his
curiosity was limited to a bread-tree, and his admiration to an
equestrian performance in the riding-school. It was, however,
a good augury for Westphalian education that the first Minister
of Public Instruction should have been Johann von Muller, one
of the best-known and best-liked men among the savants of
Germany. Nobody could have been better fitted from his accu-
rate acquaintance with the university system, his high ideal
of knowledge, and his zeal for education, to superintend the
work of his department. His successor — for he died in 1809 —
Baron von Leist, was less distinguished but highly competent,
having done brilliantly as a youth at Gottingen, in which
university he had been promoted to a chair of law. But his
character was marked by two grave defects : servility to those
in power, and a lively appetite for the adulation of his
inferiors.

In a letter to Goethe the French minister describes von Muller
as occupied in ' protecting his universities as the hen does her
chicks, while the greedy falcon of finance swims in the air.' It
was, indeed, from the first inevitable that the falcon would
make a swoop upon a prey which was at once helpless and in-
viting. On March 28, 1809, von Muller received a letter from
the King announcing his intention to suppress the Universities
of Marburg, Rinteln, and Helmstadt, together with several
schools. The minister pleaded hard for the condemned institu-
tions. They brought money into the country ; their suppression
would scarcely add 600,000 francs to the treasury, a sum less
than the cost of furnishing a palace ; they had been famous in
the past, they were useful in the present, and Marburg was not
only the sole university of the Reformed Church in Westphalia,

284 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

but upon the advent of the King had obtained a formal promise
that its foundation should be respected K The shock of the
unequal controversy is said to have cost von Muller his life,
but his worst fears were not realized, for owing to the inter-
vention of Baron von Berlepsch, the prefect of the department,
the Philippina of Marburg was rescued from destruction. By
a decree of December 10, 1809, the Universities of Helmstadt
and Rinteln, and the schools of Klosterbergen and Riddags-
hausen, were abolished and their revenues transferred to the
Universities of Gottingen, Marburg, and Halle. Though the
complaints of the antiquaries filled the air, there was much to
be said for the concentration of endowments. The revenues
of the Westphalian universities had never been large or evenly
distributed, and they were now greatly diminished by the con-
fiscation of half the domains of the kingdom to the Napoleonic
dotations 2. It was better that three universities should flourish
than that five should starve, and the determination of the
government, arrived at in 1810, to pay the professors from the
State chest, and to subsidize the university institutions from
an educational fund (Studienfonds) formed from the endow-
ments of Marburg, Helmstadt, Rinteln, Klosterbergen, and
Ilfeld, was a step in the right direction. But the gains accruing
from the concentration of endowments, the absorption of
monastic libraries, and the more exact adjustment of revenue
to needs, were outweighed by serious financial losses. Half
the revenue of Gottingen had been derived from lands
which were now appropriated by Napoleon. It became in-
creasingly difficult for the government to collect the revenues
which supplied the Studienfonds, and the remittances of
the State to professors and institutions were apt to be tardy,
irregular, and insufficient. In 1813 the financial credit of
the University of Gottingen was such, that the bakers refused
to supply bread and the butchers refused to supply meat
to the hospital. There was the same tale of destitution in
Halle, where the students, being almost entirely composed of
poor country folk, could pay no fees, and the professors were

1 Memoires du roi Jerome, iii. 334-8.

2 It is worth noting that Marburg with under 200 students was richer
than Gottingen with 700 (Muller, Aus sturmvoller Zeit, 168).

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 285

remunerated in government paper which no tradesman would
accept \

Placed under the authority of the prefect of the department,
the universities were required to submit their programmes to
the Minister of Instruction, and it was expected that in these
documents laudations of the King should hold a place. The
university jurisdiction was summarily abolished, and the aged
Heyne, the doyen of Gottingen, watched with anguish the
uncorrected youth swaggering off with rapiers at their sides to
the five duelling-grounds, under the very eyes of the impotent
beadles and professors. The students of the University were
forbidden to wear moustaches, as well as caps of a certain shape
and colour, which were regarded as emblems of their clubs or
societies. They avenged themselves by wearing women's bonnets
and straw hats, and by sending their shorn moustaches to the
pro-rector. 'It is said,' writes Reinhard, who reports these
circumstances, 'that 400 students from other countries have
sworn to leave Gottingen at the end of the next term, and to
go to Heidelberg V

Heyne, whose correspondence with von Muller throws a
curious light upon the history of his University, says that the
zeal for theology and philosophy was declining, because it was
felt that these studies were no longer of practical use. Every
year the dreadful conscription days levied their toll of victims
and emptied the lecture-halls. The new police pried into
everything, censured the lecture-lists and the Gelehrte Anzeigen,
the learned organ of the Georgia Augusta University. The
mayor said that nothing could be printed without the consent
of the Oberpolizei-Inspector, and meanwhile the government
had actually made a monopoly of the printing and sale of the
official German translation of the Code Napoleon. 'If the
schools are to be dependent on the prefects, then I give up all
hope that anything will come of it."' It was not, however, the

1 A petition of the pro-rectors and professors of Gottingen (April 29,
1808) states that 130,000 francs, or half the university revenue, was
derived from ten bailiwicks of monastic or conventual land now annexed
by the State (Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Westphalie, 2). Thimme
(ii. 298 if.) depicts the financial anxieties of Gottingen, and StefFens (Was
ich erlebte) the sorrows of Halle.

2 Revue Historique, xvii. 340, 5.

286 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

prefect who was the foe of university education in Westphalia,
but crippled finances and the blighting political suspicion
which suppressed all liberty of association and all freedom of
speech. * I will burn the town of Halle,' cried Jerome, in 1809,
after the episode of Schill. ' I don't want savants ; I want
ignoramuses and soldiers1.''

There was no general reorganization of the Westphalian
schools, but there were several draft schemes. A single high
school for each department, an educational council of laymen
and ecclesiastics in each departmental capital — these projects
were ventilated and laid aside, probably because they were
found to involve expense. There was a plan for the organiza-
tion of mathematical instruction in the higher schools, and for
a mathematical seminary at Gottingen. Something also was
accomplished. The whole educational system was placed under
the immediate control of the sub-prefects and prefects, and
under the ultimate control of the Director-General of Educa-
tion, and a new mode was devised for the appointment of
elementary teachers. A lycee and a burgher school were
established at Cassel, and it must be remembered to the credit
of the administration that no undue attempt was made to force
French down the throats of the people2. One prefect was
foolish enough to think that the French codes would extinguish
legal studies, and that the liberated energies of Germany should
be devoted to agriculture, mining, and commercial education.
On the whole, the French bias was in favour of practical and
technical studies. Since the cavalry must have sound horses,
lectures on the veterinary art were introduced into the curri-
culum at Gottingen. The revenues of the Harz Mountains
were meagre, but they might be increased by skill, and a course
on mining was added to the university programmes. A theo-
retical and practical school of forestry was decreed in 1811,
but never came into existence. A new faculty for French

1 The correspondence of Hovel, the prefect of Gottingen, with von
Muller, throws a favourable light on the zeal and intelligence of the
local official (Thimme, ii. 296). The remark of Jerome has been reported
by Reinhard. Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Poi. : Westphalie, 3.

2 Two hours a day were allotted to French in the State schools, a fair but
not tyrannical allowance (F. Miiller, Kassel seit 70 Jakren, i. 42).

WESTPHALIAN PROBLEMS 287

literature was founded at Gottingen. In the matter of the fine
arts, music excepted, the French were superior to the Germans,
and the light comedies which were the joy of Jerome may have
refined, though they could not elevate, the public taste of the
playgoers at Cassel 1,

But there was unconscious humour in the suggestion that an
Academy of Arts should be founded in the Westphalian capital,
seeing that it had been robbed of all its masterpieces of paint-
ing and statuary by the French, and that its museum was
converted into a chamber of deputies. Of the 299 pictures
which were taken from the Electoral picture-galleries to adorn
the walls of the Louvre or Malmaison, 244 were recovered at
the Second Restoration, but there were some irreparable losses,
and the 'Caritas' of Leonardo da Vinci, which had been the
jewel of the Frederieiamim, has never been seen since it was
stolen by Denon in 1807 2.

1 It is to Jerome's credit that he attempted to allure Beethoven from
Vienna to Cassel (Thayer, Beethoven, iii. 67).

2 Volkel's Erinnerungen (Zeitschrift des Vereins fur Hessische Geschichte
und Landeskunde, Neue Folge, ix. 249 IF.).

CHAPTER XIII

THE RUIN OF WESTPHALIA

c En m'apprenant que votre administration est mauvaise, vous ne m'ap-
prenez rien de nouveau.' — Napoleon to Jerome, Dec. 10, 1811.

The commerce of the region now known as the Kingdom of
Westphalia had been stifled by innumerable tolls and customs
barriers, and by 'an immense catalogue of enormous contradictory
and arbitrary duties upon almost all the products of nature and
art.' While the law was various, antiquated, and dilatory, the
fiscal resources of the vanished governments were limited by
noble and ecclesiastical exemptions, by financial ignorance and
fraud. In the old Prussian provinces so complicated was the
tariff, and so prevalent was dishonesty, that only one-tenth of
the estimated revenue was realized upon the principal items.
While the excise was administered on four separate systems in
the Prussian provinces, each of these systems was totally different
from that which was adopted in Hanover 1. Every little fraction
had, in fact, its own fiscal system, and all systems were bad,
being characterized by three great vices — the exemption of the
rich, impediments to transit, and a large number of irritating
duties upon commodities. All the governments had been forced,
partly owing to the exemptions of the nobles, and partly owing
to the action of the provincial Estates, to eschew taxation, and
the revenue was mainly raised from taxes upon commodities
and from the yield of the domains. But though the fiscal system
was confused and vicious, there is no reason to think that it
was oppressive. It was acknowledged by the ministers of the
new monarchy that the government of Brunswick had been wise,
moderate, and economical, that the rule in Hanover was mild

1 Circulaire du Ministre des Finances a MM. les Prefets, Moniteur
Westphalien, ii. 317.

THE RUIN OF WESTPHALIA 289

and paternal, albeit somewhat improvident, and that the
strictest economy had been practised in the Electorate of Hesse.

There is no reason to suppose that there was any active dis-
content with the form of government in any of the small
provinces and principalities which were welded together into
the Kingdom of Westphalia. But if government was not an
irritant, it was an incubus. Industry was undeveloped, transport
slow and costly, and there was a general lack of accumulated
capital and of commercial activity. A Dutch observer, General
Dedem de Gelder, remarked that in Hesse nobody worked. The
great men were idlers living on pensions, the people privileged
beggars. There was no instruction, no art, no trade, and the
primary necessities of life, not to speak of the luxuries, were
imported from abroad. There was, no doubt, more stir in the
Departments of the Ocker, the Elbe, and the Saale, • provinces
which had been to a certain extent affected by the enlighten-
ment which proceeded from Brunswick and Berlin, but it was
symptomatic of the whole area that no less than one-eighth of
its total revenue was paid away in small pensions to persons
who regarded a pension as a dispensation from activity. In his
opening address to the Estates (July % 1808), King Jerome
professed that * his efforts would constantly tend to divert the
spirit of the nation from its tendency to live upon prebends and
salaries V

The government of Jerome displayed for the first time in
Germany the leading principles of enlightened finance. A few
light taxes were imposed upon articles of general consumption,
such as meat, corn, beer, brandy, and tobacco, and all taxes
upon luxuries, which were both expensive to collect and un-
profitable when collected, disappeared from the budget 2.
Internal communications were freed from the burden of toll
and duty. Some 10,000,000 francs were raised from a land-
tax, which was not an inequitable sum, considering that the
chief wealth of the kingdom lay in agriculture. A patent tax

1 Moniteur Westphalien , i. 341.

8 There were no less than 1,682 articles on the Prussian excise tariff of
1804. On the Westphalian tariff of 1808 there were ten articles ; on that
of 1810, twelve articles ; cf. Hassel und Murhard, Westfalen unter Riero-
nymus Napoleon.

fisher u

290 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

upon industries, light, easy of control, and far from inquisitorial,
involved the principle that every man was free to enter any
industry or trade. Drawbacks upon the re-exportation of alien
articles taxed upon the frontier, and upon the exportation of
home-made beer and brandy, encouraged alike native industries
and foreign importation. Raw materials and all articles which
paid internal consumption duties were admitted into the king-
dom free, while foreign manufactured articles were liable to
a duty of six per cent., an amount which may safely be described
as having been dictated by fiscal rather than by protective aims.
Indeed, save in the case of iron and copper, which were safe-
guarded by especially heavy duties, there seems no indication
of a desire upon the part of the Westphalian financiers to
protect home industries at the expense of home consumption.
The import of salt — a government monopoly — and of English
wines was prohibited, the latter prohibition in pursuance of
Napoleon^s command, but otherwise import and export were left
entirely free from those barbarous restrictions which had defaced
the earlier tariffs. The introduction of personal taxes into
a country which has no experience of them is always attended
with difficulty, and the Westphalian financiers were somewhat
unfortunate in their experiments in this direction. In 1808 they
proposed to raise 4,000,000 francs by a tax assessed upon the
household, and varying from fifty francs to sixty centimes
according to the ascertained size and assumed prosperity of that
unit. But great complaints were made that the tax bore too
lightly upon the wealthier classes, and substantial deficits in
1808 and 1809 attested the difficulty of collecting it. Accord-
ingly in the autumn of 1809 a commission was appointed to
investigate, and a short time afterwards it submitted a plan for
a new tax to the financial committee of the Estates. There
were long debates, and the resistance was so stubborn that the
ministers were forced to withdraw their plan, and to enact it
by decree on March 15, 1810. A graduated poll-tax and a two
per cent, income-tax upon incomes over 1,000 francs was now
introduced, only to meet with the same criticism as its pre-
decessor. It is probable enough that the system of classification
adopted (for the purposes of graduation the population of the
kingdom was divided into ten classes) showed, as was alleged,

THE RUIN OF WESTPHALIA 291

great local ignorance, and that both poll-tax and income-tax
bore too heavily on the poor. But in its principle and design
the tax was reasonable enough, and the mistake of the West-
phalian financiers was not that they contemplated the taxation
of personalty, but that they approached the tax with insufficient
knowledge of detail. The result was felt to be unsatisfactory,
and on January 12, 1811, the income-tax was abolished while
the poll-tax was increased. The profits from the mines, the
domains, the forests, and the salt works, a State lottery, a some-
what burdensome stamp-tax, a tithe of the revenues of prebends,
abbeys, convents, and priories, formed other items of the West-
phalian budget. It was provided that a sum of 4,500,000 francs
annually should be devoted to the service of the debt, and the
strictest arrangements were enforced for the collection, the
expenditure, and the audit of the revenue. 'A single central
administration,'' wrote von Bulow in 1808, 'sets all forces in
motion, a single hierarchical order is everywhere introduced,
principles congenial to the constitution serve as the basis of all
rules, clear instructions suitable to the localities define every
detail of the service, and it only requires a short period of rest
and peace to bring this administration, emulous of its great
prototype, to a height from which it would have no cause to
shun comparison.'

We do not contend that the system was perfect. The
expenses of collecting the consumption taxes came to 13| per
cent, of the total, 10 per cent, too much. The salt monopoly
encouraged smuggling, the million gained by the stamp-tax
was not worth the trouble which it cost to collect, the charges
assigned to the departmental and communal exchequers were
probably too high ; there were widely distributed complaints as
to the assessment of the personal tax. But, compared with the
previous financial systems which had maintained in these parts
of Germany, a Westphalian budget was a model of wise and lucid
statesmanship. There were no exemptions, no privileges ; there
was no obscurity or complexity, no sinister respect for vested
interests. The rubble of feudalism, of local tradition, had been
swept away, and a new building equipped with all the modern
appliances for bright lighting rose from the ground.

With a good system of finance, a zealous and well-directed

u2

292 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

administrative class, and a sound though somewhat autocratic
constitution, the Kingdom of Westphalia possessed many
elements of success. But it was confronted by two deadly
enemies, Jerome its king, and Napoleon its creator. The
selection of Jerome to rule Westphalia is one of the many
instances in which Napoleon's family pride and affection over-
powered his political judgement. No one was more thoroughly
aware of that young man's foibles than the elder brother, who
instructed Ganteaume to keep a tight hand upon him at sea,
and Fouche to dog his movements on land. But he reflected
that responsibility might harden a character as yet fluid and
unformed, and, with a distrust as genuine as his affection,
arranged for a supply of secret information as to the doings
and sayings of the King. During the first few months Jerome
appeared to justify the favourable expectations of the Emperor.
Everybody, Grimm, Strombeck, Wolffradt, was charmed by the
young man's obvious amiability. The ministers and Councillors
of State reported that his apprehension was quick, and that he
had a peculiar capacity for summarizing discussions, and as
he toured through the country to make the acquaintance of his
new subjects, his frank and popular bearing was warmly
appreciated. But power developed rather than repressed the
weaker elements of his character. ' Counsels,' said d'Albignac
in 1809, 'the King receives from no one ; he is the most
absolute man of my acquaintance V Simeon and Eble agreed
that though his desires often changed, they were always the
desires of a despot. s The Emperor likes one to have character,'
he would say, and ' character ' for him was equivalent to self-
will. Thus his decisions at the Council of State, instead of
being based upon the opinions submitted to him, were the
result of * chance inspiration V To these disqualifications of self-
will and impetuosity he added that of a prodigal taste for display
and dissipation. We need not believe all the stories which are
told in the Secret History of Westphalia and in other scandalous
chronicles. To Jerome's credit be it said that he managed to
retain to the end the affections of his shy but amiable wife.
But that the Court was both licentious and wildly extravagant
is one of the best-attested facts in history. The Civil List was
1 Revue Historique, xvii. 331. 2 Ibid. 335.

THE RUIN OF WESTPHALIA 293

fixed at 5,000,000 francs, a huge sum in comparison with the total
Westphalian revenue, but the King regularly exceeded it by at
least 2,000,000. Parties, suppers, masked balls, illuminations,
royal progresses, equestrian statues, costly private theatricals
account for much. Huge sums were sunk in building and in the
purchase of estates. The gardens of Napoleon shohe were trans-
formed, the castle restored and refurnished, while the amenities
of the park were increased by aqueducts and temples, pavilions
and pagodas, fountains and grottoes. The Queen on her birth-
day received a house and garden at the gate of Cassel, with
silver plate, and 50,000 francs for the furniture. A new hall
was built to house the Estates, since the Orangerie was deemed
inadequate. Nor did Jerome take the slightest pains to get
value for the money so lavishly expended. ' The King, having
lately breakfasted with a banker named Jordis, said to the
gardener, as he went out, "This house belongs to me." The
bargain was concluded for 30,000 thalers. It had cost M. Jordis
3,000 ; the improvements are estimated at 5,000 V Public
functions, private theatricals, and fancy-dress balls in constant
succession swelled the account. The costumes must come from
Paris, and as it was the King's chief pleasure to emulate the
feats of the quick-change artist — to appear, for instance, in the
course of one evening ' as a draper, a sailor, an elegant chimney-
sweep, and a Savoyard ' — the bills of the tailor and the milliner
were a serious item in the budget 2. Add to this the royal gifts,
for as the King once explained to his ministers, he saw nothing
in royalty save the pleasure of giving ; to the favourite ladies
diamonds and pearls, to the favourite men titles and estates, to
the generals horses, to the chamberlains carriages, to all and
every one who might come his way twenty-five Jeromes 3. As if this
munificence were not enough, he created the Order of the Crown
of Westphalia at the annual cost of 300,000 francs, charged on
the Abbey of Quedlinburg. So fast did the gold fly that by 1809
he had not only pillaged the public treasury of 2,000,000 francs
in defiance of the constitution, but he had run up a debt on his
own account which probably exceeded 10,000,000. No wonder

1 Revue Historique, xvii. 339.

2 Fulda und Hoffmeister, Hessische Zeiten und Persbnlichkeiten, 139.

3 Memoir es du roi Jerome, v. 189-94.

294 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

that his ministers were in despair. One of the Councillors of
State told the French ambassador that if by doubling the Civil
List one could establish the certainty that the expenditure would
be perfectly regular, and the King interested in the finances of the
State, it would be a most advantageous bargain for Westphalia.

Profligate expenditure and autocratic ways do not accord
with constitutional government, and after its first meeting the
Reichstag was only once again summoned in January 1810.
But though the pomp of the earlier assembly was increased,
there was an air of unreality about the proceedings. The
deputies were summoned for January 7, but it was Carnival,
and business must be postponed till the round of balls and
festivals had been completed, and though every member drew
twenty francs a day during attendance, the opening was actually
deferred for three weeks, a gratuitous waste of over 16,000
francs. The interest of the occasion in reality centred round
the new hall and the new costume of the legislators, a blue coat
embroidered with orange silk, a white silk scarf, a blue silk
mantle lined with white, and a black samite toque adorned
with ostrich feathers. * The Reichstag is only a comedy,' said
the Minister of Finance with brutal frankness to a member, and
the remark was confirmed by the fact that its decisions had
been for the most part anticipated by the convenient method
of provisional decree. Of the many measures submitted by the
government during a session of seven weeks, one only — a bill
for a stamp-tax — was rejected, and that by the narrow majority
of six voices. All the hopes of 1808 had vanished ; there was
a general feeling that the kingdom was doomed, and that
annexation to France was at hand1.

For this general depression Napoleon was even more respon-
sible than his brother. No one indeed saw with greater
penetration the needs of these German provinces or the benefits
which French rule could bestow upon them. From the Em-
peror's letters to Jerome it would be possible to compose

1 Hassel und Murhard, Westfalen unter Hieronymus Napoleon ; Minerva,
ii. 55 ; Strombeck, Darstellungen, ii. 74 ff. The government with some
dexterity threw its driest bones to the legislature — the five last books
of the Code of Civil Procedure, which had already been enacted by
provisional decree.

THE RUIN OF WESTPHALIA 295

a Jlorilegiurn of excellent advice suitable for the consumption
of a young man called upon to rule a small State. He must
be strictly economical ; he must not try to emulate the pomp
of wealthy rulers ; he must surround himself with the best
talents ; he must cultivate the middle classes, and adapt himself
to the simple manners of a simple people ; he must not give
rewards which are disproportionate to merits ; he must acquire
a knowledge of military tactics, and of judicial and financial
administration, and when war breaks out he must serve 'like
a young soldier who has need of glory and reputation.' In
a single sentence written December 10, 1811, Napoleon ex-
pressed the final criticism on his brother's policy : ' The King
raises too many troops, spends too much, and too often changes
his principles of administration."' Nor has any more complete
judgement been passed upon Jerome's character than the follow-
ing : * You have many pretensions, some wits, some good
qualities, but spoilt by fatuity, by an extreme presumption, and
you have no knowledge of things V

Yet in spite of all this penetration Napoleon ruined West-
phalia, treating the kingdom as a mere financial and military
asset in his great game of politics. On April 22, 1808, a treaty
was signed at Berlin by Malchus on behalf of the Westphalian,
and by Daru on behalf of the imperial government, for the
purpose of adjusting the financial claims of the French Empire
and its German satellite. It was essentially one of those
occasions on which generosity is the highest wisdom. These
provinces were poor, and their resources had been drained by
a military occupation extending over a year; they were now
to be governed by a French prince, upon French principles, and
in alliance with the French Empire. If the new connection was
to be made acceptable to the inhabitants, it was of primary
necessity that taxation should be light, and that the injuries
to historic sentiment should be healed, so far as such injuries
ever can be healed, by an increase in material affluence. This,
however, was not the policy of Napoleon, or the spirit of the
Treaty of Berlin. By that arrangement every penny was wrung
from the Kingdom of Westphalia which the French Empire
could claim upon any pretext, good or indifferent ; the greater
1 Lecestre, Lettres inedites, 217-8, 282, 307, 327-8.

296 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

portion of the debts of the ex-Elector of Hesse, amounting to
a credit of some 20,000,000 or 30,000,000 francs ; domains to the
value of 7,000,000 francs, or, in other words, half of the domainial
revenue of the kingdom ; and a war contribution fixed at
26,000,000 francs, to be paid in eighteen months dating from
May 1, 1808. Lastly, the Emperor refused to be responsible for
the charges, amounting to 8,000,000 francs, which had been in-
curred during the military occupation of 1807. Nor do these
provisions exhaust the full significance of the transaction, for the
reserved domains were exempted from public burdens, and, being
cultivated for the benefit of absentee French landlords, were
often administered in a slovenly and corrupt manner K

Turn where they might, the financiers of the new kingdom
could not make the deficit on the first year less than 40,000,000
francs. The Empire required Westphalia to maintain a French
force of 12,500, and a Westphalian force of equal number. The
estimated expenditure, therefore, was not lower than 35,000,000,
and to this must be added the arrears of 1807 (8,000,000), and
the first instalment of the war contribution, 20,000,000. In other
words, a debt of 60,000,000 or 70,000,000 francs, a revenue of
20,000,000 or 30,000,000. From the very beginning, therefore,
the government was driven to resort to all manner of ex-
pedients. The Jews of Cassel lent 1,800,000 francs; a forced
loan of 20,000,000 was issued, but only half covered, despite
flatteries and menaces, and all the influence which the government
could bring to bear. It was in vain that Jerome appealed to
the Emperor, that he represented the misery of the population,
and the utter ruin which faced the country, if the Treaty of
Berlin were to continue in force2. Napoleon replied with
flouts and jeers. ' I was for two years in France without

1 On the calculation of Malchus the reserved domains, after the incor-
poration of Hanover, involved an annual loss to the State of two millions
in addition to their annual value (F. von Specht, Das Konigreich West-
phalen, 27). The maladministration of the reserved domains is depicted
in Neue Fakkeln, iii. 35 if.

2 ' L' audience que le roi a donnee a M. le Fevre avant son depart avaitpour
objet de le charger de me dire et meme de declarer a Votre Majeste . . . quil
etoit impossible que le royaume de Westphalie put aller encore plus de deux
mois et demi.7 — Champagny to Napoleon, Aug. 19, 1809 ; A. F. iv.
1706 b. Cf. Revue Historique, xvii. 346.

THE RUIN OF WESTPHALIA 297

finances. The King of Naples is hardly beginning to regularize
his. In Italy I was so for six years.' Or else he rebuked Jerome
for his luxury — a theme which Jerome's conduct pressingly
invited, and to which the Emperor returned again and again.

Yet in the end the resistance of the impoverished debtor led
to a relaxation of the monstrous Treaty of Berlin. By the
treaty of January 14, 1810, which ceded Hanover to Westphalia,
the war contribution was reduced to 16,000,000 francs, to be
paid in ten annual instalments. But although this was a great
alleviation, the gift of Hanover was accompanied by conditions
which rendered it an additional burden to the recipient.
Napoleon reserved to himself a revenue of 4,559,000 francs, free
of taxes, for ten years from the domains of Hanover. Six of
the dotations instituted by the Emperor in the Kingdom of
Westphalia, and representing a revenue of 145,000 francs, had
been retained by Jerome. The French donees were now to be
placed in possession. The Hanoverian debt was to be taken
over by Westphalia. The contingent of the Kingdom of West-
phalia was fixed at 26,000 men, of whom 4,000 were to be
cavalry and 2,000 artillery, and until the end of the maritime
war Westphalia pledged herself to keep up 6,000 French troops
over and above the 12,500 which she had promised to maintain
by Article 5 of the constitution. Of these 18,500 men 6,000
were to be cavalry.

It was calculated that the Emperor, by reserving to himself
practically all the Hanoverian domains, would leave the kingdom
an annual deficit of 2,000,000 francs on the Hanoverian account.
This deficit, indeed, could perhaps in time of peace have been
made good by improved administration, but the burden of
maintaining 18,500 Frenchmen in addition to the Westphalian
army was quite crushing. Reinhard says that it was calculated
that Hanover would cost 10,000,000 francs more than it would
bring in 1. As it was, the cost of the 12,500 French troops, which
amounted to 10,000,000 francs, had never been met by any
regular financial expedients. The item did not occur in the

1 According to Malchus, what with the reserved domains, the Civil List,
and the army, there would be left 1,500,000 francs wherewith to defray
the expenses of Hanoverian administration and to meet the service of the
debt ; cf. von Specht,, 29.

298 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

budget. It was met by hand to mouth expedients ; by the sale of
national goods and the secularization of ecclesiastical lands ; by
loans contracted at usurious rates ; by the suspension of pay-
ments due to State creditors. It was now proposed to increase
the item already covered with such difficulty and ignominy by
a half. No wonder that when the terms of the treaty reached
Cassel they aroused grave disappointment. It was only by
desperate measures that the French troops received their pay as
it was, and in August complaints reached the Emperor that
the pay was in arrears. His letters during September 1810 are
full of complaints : the King was wasting money recklessly over
a camp at Cassel ; he was disturbing Europe by his prepara-
tions for war ; his administration was conniving at the importa-
tion of English wares ; he was making himself ridiculous by
awarding grand titles to his friends. Jerome, on the other hand,
complained that his country was treated more severely than
a hostile State ; that French troops were moved about ; that re-
quisitions were levied by the sole order of the Prince of Eckmuhl ;
in fact, that he was no longer ruler of his own kingdom.

Meanwhile, negotiators were disputing as to the terms of the
formal deed of cession. It was not till March 11, 1811, that
the deed was signed, and then the Emperor refused to ratify,
and in the correspondence which followed the King raised again
the two main questions of the troops and the domains. An
additional degree of acrimony was imported into the negotiations
by an event which occurred in December 1810. The Court of
Westphalia suddenly learnt that the northern part of Hanover,
and almost the whole of the Department of the Weser, had
been incorporated in the French Empire. Jerome was told that
he had not executed the stipulations of the treaty relative to
the cession of Hanover, and that the Emperor was consequently
free to discard it. This was a mere pretext. The spoliation
of Westphalia was part of the policy of the continental
blockade, as Champagny in a letter to Reinhard (December 14,
1810) clearly showed, writing thus: 'The annexation of the
Hanseatic towns necessitates the union of those parts of Han-
over and Westphalia which may contribute to render the
territory of those towns contiguous to the Empire.' The
King was forced to acquiesce in a decree which deprived him

THE RUIN OF WESTPHALIA 299

not only of half his recent acquisitions, but of the richest
department of his original kingdom. It was in vain that he
pleaded for territorial compensations in the direction of the
Rhine. The imperial authorities held that Hanover had never
belonged to Westphalia, and consequently that in offering
Jerome the southern part of the Electorate, they were giving
him compensation for the loss of the Weser department. In
the treaty of May 10, 1811, it was stated that the King of
Westphalia ceded to France that part of the Department of the
Weser which had been already annexed by the Senatusconsult
of December 13, while a portion of Hanover, situated south of
a line determined in that document, was to be incorporated in
the kingdom. The French troops at the charge of the West-
phalian exchequer were reduced to their old number, and the
Emperor renounced his claim for arrears due from the districts
of Hanover which Jerome was forced to disgorge.

On the whole the Hanoverian incident, though humiliating
enough, brought some relief to Westphalian finance, for in the
end the military burden was not increased, while the debt to
France was reduced by 10,000,000 francs. But that Napoleon
had any sympathy with the embarrassments of the exchequer at
Cassel is negatived by all that we know of these transactions.
He thought Westphalia a fair prey, and he was determined to
exact the uttermost farthing. It was only the farthings he
could not exact that he consented openly to remit.

It must be avowed that Jerome was not morally in a position
to plead for favours. The Emperor naturally enough retorted
to his extravagant brother that the remedy was in his own
hands, and that kings who outstep a liberal Civil List have no
claim to consideration. What indeed was the use of a West-
phalian minister at St. Petersburg with a salary of 80,000
francs, and a Westphalian minister at Paris with a salary of
100,000 francs, when from the nature of the case Westphalia
could have no foreign policy ? Why create an expensive
knightly order, when even the officials of the State did not
receive their pay regularly ? Why these buildings and balls,
these lavish gifts to favourites, and extravagant costumes ?
There was no possible apology forthcoming. An economical
Court might have lived upon 3,000,000 francs a year, which

300 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

would have represented a sum less by 24,000,000 to 80,000,000
than that expended on King Jerome's frivolities.

But the main item in the Westphalian expenditure was not
the Court but the army. The contingent of the kingdom, as
we have seen, had been fixed in the first instance at 25,000 men,
half of whom were to be provisionally composed of French troops.
Conscription was declared to be a fundamental law, and it was
made illegal to hire substitutes. In itself the size of the army was
not abnormal for these regions, for in the Electorate of Hesse
alone, which was only a part of the Westphalian kingdom, there
used to be a standing army of 33,000 men. This army, however,
so far from being a burden upon the exchequer, was a considerable
financial asset, for it was hired out to foreign powers at a
remunerative rate. Further, when the Hessian soldier returned
from the wars in which he had contributed to swell the
pecuniary receipts of his monarchy he was not kept in expensive
barracks, or collected into expensive camps, or made to take
part in expensive manoeuvres ; he quietly reverted to his plough
and his family. Thus, from the financial point of view, the
military demands of Napoleon constituted an innovation. The
Westphalian contingent would, in any case* be far more expen-
sive than all the added military establishments of Hesse and of
Hanover, of the Prussian provinces and of Brunswick. It
might, therefore, have been expected that the military forces at
the charges of the State would have been strictly limited to
its treaty obligations. This, however, was not the case. If
Jerome could be said to entertain a respectable passion, it was
to win military glory, and to see something of 'la grande
guerre? All through the Silesian campaign he kept com-
plaining to his brother that he was removed from the theatre
of great events, and his first thought upon obtaining a kingdom
was to raise as large an army as he could. His contract to
France only required him to raise 12,500 men : the figure
eventually was almost tripled. If he had insisted that for every
additional Westphalian over and above the stipulated number
a French soldier should leave the country, or that some portion
of the war tribute should be remitted, there would have been
a justification for thus swelling the numbers of the West-
phalian army. But Jerome actually took pride in outstepping

THE RUIN OF WESTPHALIA 301

his strict obligations, and pressure from Napoleon coincided
with his ambitions1. 'Instead of the 20,000 men,1 wrote the
Emperor, January SO, 1808, ' have 40,000 ; you can manage
it.1 A year later (January 15, 1809) a demand equally urgent,
though less exorbitant, comes from Valladolid : ' Your con-
tingent ought to be 25,000 men ; it is very important to
complete it. You know that if the war were carried into your
territory, and you suffered a reverse, the consequences would be
serious to your kingdom.'' On February 7, Jerome is advised
to diminish his luxury, to economize part of his Civil List, so
as to increase his military establishment. Writing from Paris
a month later the Emperor says : ' Reinforce your troops as
much as possible, that you may be able to maintain order at
home, to repress an insurrection in Hanover, and even, if you
have a respectable corps, to go where circumstances may
demand. If you can form a corps of 10,000 men and of 1,500
horse with twelve pieces of artillery, you may make yourself
talked about all the more gloriously, from the fact that you
will be acting with your own troops. But you must not raise
too many corps, for I do not know how far one can trust your
soldiers. . . . Send me every five days a report on your troops
made in the subjoined form. Take care to put the number of
companies and battalions per regiment ; ' and again, on April 9 :
* You ought to have 14,000 men of your own troops, and to
reinforce your army as much as possible.1 In the army bulletin
of 1809, the fact is recognized that the Westphalian contingent
amounts to 15,000 2.

So far the Emperor had persistently encouraged the increase
of the Westphalian contingent, while urging that it should be
formed slowly. But in September 1810 he takes up another
tone. There was peace in Germany, and yet it was announced
to Napoleon that the pay of the French troops was three
months in arrear. At the same time the negotiations with
regard to the incorporation of Hanover were causing friction
between the two brothers. Napoleon wrote with some irritation :
6 1 have recommended you to form your contingent gradually

1 Memoir es du roi Jerome, v. 110.

2 Corr. xvi. 297, no. 13,512 ; xviii. 228, no. 14,718 ; 256, no. 14,764 ;
349, no. 14,865 ; 455, no. 15,042.

302 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

and by degrees as your monarchy organizes itself. Of all the
allied troops yours are those whom I am bound to distrust
most. ... If I were to count on the 30,000 men you may have
as being 30,000, I should be much deceived. . . . My system
would be in great peril if I regarded the Westphalians as sure
soldiers. You ought not to aim at having a large number of
troops, but a small number of good troops which you must
form progressively V Notwithstanding, when the Russian war
was imminent, the Emperor was glad enough to avail himself of
the additional forces which Jerome had raised, and the details
of whose organization must have been regularly submitted to
him. * I see with pleasure,' he writes, ' that you can have two
divisions forming 20,000 men, of whom 2,500 are cavalry. Do
you include the 4,000 men you have at Danzig 2 ? ' Then after
demanding fifty-four guns and four companies of sappers, with
all the necessary equipment, he concludes with just the kind of
suggestion to appeal to Jerome : ' If you collect the personnel
which I have just indicated, I shall not see any difficulty in bring-
ing up your army corps to 30,000 men, with the help of small con-
tingents of the Confederation, so as to form three fine divisions V
That was indeed the paramount ambition of Jerome, to com-
mand a whole army corps of his own troops, to see ' la grande
guerre? to rival Davout and Massena and Soult, to make his
weight felt in the wars and the treaties of the Empire. Some
vague expectations of more substantial advantages may indeed
have flitted across his mind. The size of the Westphalian army
would be a pledge of loyalty which might evoke some act of
generosity in response, such as enlargement of territory, a diminu-
tion of the war contribution, a reduction of the French garrison.
However much Napoleon might ventilate his distrust of West-
phalian fidelity, Jerome knew well enough that when the next
war came the Emperor would be only too glad of every conscript
who could carry a musket. Then the young man was nervous
and took alarm. He was conscious that if a sudden fate seizet
Napoleon, he would be called upon to fight for his throne.

1 Corr. xxi. 102, no. 16,894.

2 Corr. xxii. 109, no. 17,654.
5 Reinhard reports that the number on the effective list (including

1,100 men serving in Spain) was 28,258. Memoires du roi Jerome, v. 119.

THE RUIN OF WESTPHALIA 303

Prussia was his mortal enemy, and so long as Prussia lasted he
felt insecure. * If I am not to reign in Berlin,' he said in 1808,
1 the King of Prussia will drive me out, and my kingdom will
end with the life of the Emperor.'' And the Emperor played
on these fears, writing, ' I doubt whether you will get much out
of your troops against Prussia some years hence,'' as if a Prussian
war were an inevitable thing. Then there were the events of
1809, the insurrection of the peasants, the escapade of Schill
and of the Duke of Brunswick-Oels, the English descent on
Walcheren, the movements of the Austrians in Northern
Germany. Even after the defeat of Wagram had crushed
Austria, and Schill had fallen in the square of Stralsund, the
young man was uncomfortable at times, and Napoleon had to
remind him that all things were well. Mere idle love of pomp was
mingled with ambition and uneasy fears, and an expensive body
of household troops — a pure luxury condemned by Napoleon —
was in itself a bitter criticism on Jerome's military policy.

The burden imposed by these armaments was such as to
arrest all civil progress. On two several occasions, from 1807
to 1808 and from 1812 to 1813, the army had to be equipped
anew with everything, arms and clothing, transport and artillery,
horses and all their appurtenances. In the space of four years
the foundries were called upon to produce no less than eighty
pieces of ordnance. The uniforms were various and ridiculously
splendid. And yet all the expense of the Westphalian army,
great as it was, might have been met, had not the French army of
occupation remained undiminished in spite of a distinct and
written understanding that it was only to occupy Magdeburg,
while the native forces were below the stipulated strength \

Disastrous though it was to the finances, the Westphalian
army may be considered as a solidifying and unifying influence
in the kingdom. Catholics from Paderborn, Lutherans from
Cassel, Calvinists from Marburg, Prussians and Hessians, Hano-
verians and Brunswickers, were through it bound together in
a common profession under a common master. The men were
paid at a higher rate than had obtained under the old regime,

1 Von Specht, Das Konigreich Westphalen, 30 ; Recueil des planches
representant les troupes a differentes armes et grades de I'armee royale west-
phalienne, 4° (in the Landesbibliothek at Cassel).

304 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

and the degrading penalty of flogging was abolished. It was
the only German army in which the common soldier was not
liable to the knout, or in which Jews were permitted to hold
commissions. It was the only German army in which promotion
was strictly regulated by merit, in which the private could rise
to be a general. Nor was there any difficulty in recruiting the
regiments. The whole agricultural population of Hesse had been
accustomed to the profession of arms, and found their pinched
village existence dull and unexciting. The gentry were not
sorry to learn the profession of arms in the most brilliant school
of war which Europe had seen since the days of Conde and
Turenne. Regrets indeed there were for the old rulers and the
old fashions, but the young men did not believe that they could
ever return, and never had a profession been opened out to
them where the chances of early distinction were so great and
dazzling. It was to Jerome's credit that he was attentive to the
needs of his soldiers. He frequently visited the barracks,
chatted with the privates, tasted their food, and entered into all
the details of regimental life. ' It would be difficult to find an
army,'' says von Borcke, * where there is more internal order and
more care for the soldiers.' ' Nothing finer could be seen,' says
another officer, speaking of the royal guard. ' One detail only
shocked me : these essentially German troops manoeuvred to
foreign words of command V It is a remarkable fact that the army
grew not only by conscription but also by voluntary enlistment,
and that the men were eager for the taste of war. In September
1808 Jerome offered the Emperor a regiment of light horse for
the Spanish war. 'When,' he wrote, 'to tranquillize them,
I told them that it was not certain that they were going to
Spain, they answered that it was a misfortune for them, since it
was the only place where there was fighting.' Of fighting,
indeed, the Westphalian army was destined to have its fill.
The division which started for Spain 5,800 strong, and was
subsequently raised to a strength of 8,000, struggled home
a miserable war-worn remnant of 800 men. Of the 16,000 men
who marched into Russia, who poured out their blood at
Smolensk and Valentina, at Borodino and the Beresina, scarce

1 Von Borcke, Kriegerleben ; If Jena a Moscou : Fragments de ma vie,
de Sackowj tr. Veling, 103.

THE RUIN OF WESTPHALIA 305

2,000 lived to tell the tale. At the battle of Borodino alone
186 Westphalian officers were returned as killed or wounded.
Nevertheless after this unparalleled disaster a new army was
called for and a new army was made, and in the summer of
1813 nearly 30,000 Westphalian conscripts were ready to take
the field. In all, during these six years, more than 600,000 men
out of a population of 2,000,000 had become ' conscriptable
matter,' and of these about 38,000 had been slain or had fallen
in foreign lands *.

To these evils must be added a general and growing uncer-
tainty as to the ultimate destiny of the country, an uncertainty
which paralysed the will and sapped the energies of the servants
of the State. The appearance of French custom-house officers
in Westphalia itself (August 1809), the annexation of Holland
and of the Hanseatic towns, the offer and subsequent with-
drawal of Hanover, the annexation of the Department of the
Weser (May 10, 1811) to the French Empire, showed how
little respect Napoleon entertained for the boundaries of his
dependent States. After the last exhibition of the Emperor's
restlessness, all kinds of wild rumours were in the air : Swedish
Pomerania and Naples were to be annexed ; Murat was to have
Poland ; Prussia was to be swallowed by Westphalia. There
seemed to be no end to the humiliations in reserve for Jerome
and his luckless kingdom. The hard hand of Marshal Davout
weighed heavily on the north. On May 13, 1811, Jerome
complained that an agent of the Prince of Eckmiihl was
residing in Cassel for the purpose of supervising his actions,
and that this agent had gone to the Minister of War,
and threatened on behalf of his master to seize the town and
territory of Magdeburg unless the King of Westphalia forth-
with repaired its fortifications and provisioned its magazines.
The personal conduct of the Prince was still more irritating to
Jerome's amour propre. He treated Westphalia as if it were
his own property, stopping where he pleased, punishing whom
he pleased, ' announcing loudly,' says Jerome, ' that his plan of
conduct was to press the button on my subjects to make them

1 Specht calculates that the total strength of the Westphalian army
(including the gendarmerie and without the veterans) was 29,046 men in
1813 (Das Konigreich Westphalen} 77-8).

FISHER X

306 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

desire union with France.' Meanwhile French troops were
steadily poured into the exhausted and indebted country. On
November 17, 1811, instead of 12,500 foot and 1,500 horse, there
were 25,000 foot and 10,000 horse quartered in Westphalia.

France was now fast drifting into war with Russia, and the
Kingdom of Westphalia was merely a pawn in the game. As
the Westphalian towns were being filled up with French troops,
some friction between French and German was to be anticipated.
Napoleon declared that all offences against French officers must
be judged by the French military tribunals, that the Grande
Armee was constituted, and that martial law was to be pro-
claimed in Magdeburg. The various contingents of the Grand
Army marched eastward over Westphalian roads, and plunged
the country in misery. ' In Hanover, in Magdeburg, and in the
principal towns of my kingdom,' wrote Jerome, December 5,
1811, 'the proprietors abandon their houses and try to get rid
of them at prices however low. Everywhere misery besieges
families ; capital is exhausted, and the noble, the bourgeois, and
the peasant, overwhelmed with debts and needs, seem to expect
no other aid than vengeance, which they call for with all their
desires, to which they direct all their wishes.' On the first six
months of 1812 the deficit amounted to 30,000,000 francs, while
the debt was estimated at anything between 140,000,000 and
200,000,000. Credit there was none, nor was there any chance
of a diminution of expenditure. After February 1, the Grande
Armee was constituted, and henceforward all the troops can-
toned on Westphalian territory were at the charge of the
government. Catharine, who upon Jerome's departure for Russia
was made Regent of the kingdom, wrote to her husband in
despair. Three of her advisers agreed that if the war lasted
over next year ' the kingdom would go to pieces of itself, like
a machine which stops work because the wheels are broken1.1
The financial expedients of the government sufficiently indicate
the character of the situation. The land-tax, which was to be
levied monthly, was fixed at twenty-five per cent, of the net
revenue ; the King decreed a forced loan of 5,000,000 francs ; two-
thirds of the debt taken over by the Westphalian kingdom from
the governments which preceded it were repudiated. The arrears
1 Memoires du roi Jerome, v. 494.

THE RUIN OF WESTPHALIA 307

of 1808-11 were to be met by 3,000,000 of paper hypothecated
on the State domains. The expenses of local government were
to be assured by centimes additionnels amounting to one- twentieth
of the land-tax. The stamp-tax and the beer-duty were raised,
and the arrears of interest on the debt capitalized. Reinhard,
in reporting these steps to the Duke of Bassano, said that the
servants of His Majesty sorrowfully agreed that all these
measures, violent though they were, would not effect a radical
cure, and that the proportion between receipts and expenses
would not be made up 1.

The Russian catastrophe made a final end of this miserable
kingdom. Ever since 1809 the feeling against the French had
been steadily growing. The most optimistic observer described
it as a 'general malaise,'' but it was in reality smothered
indignation. The Queen was in constant fear that her husband
would be assassinated. The Prussian envoy in Cassel wrote in
December 1811, that the King at any moment expected to be
driven from his capital, and that he had three horses ready
saddled and bridled every night for himself, six horses for his
wife's carriage, and an escort, in case a sudden flight should be
necessary. So great was the hatred of the French, that when
the poor inhabitants of the Weser heard that they were to be
annexed to France, they offered a whole year's contributions
to the King of Westphalia, in order that the French might find
nothing when they occupied the country2. The officials on
the northern frontier represented in the most harrowing terms
the lot of these 'new Frenchmen,1 who, incorporated in the
'greatest empire of the world,1 were driven to desperation by
taxes, customs, conscription, and police. No destiny appeared
to be so pitiable as absorption into France, and yet it was the
general opinion among Westphalians that this was to be their
lot 3. Here and there, as at Brunswick, a fracas broke out
between the French and the Westphalian troops, but it was
soon put down. The power of Napoleon was too great, and no
one seriously dreamed of resisting it.

1 Memoires du red Jerome, v. 497-8 ; Decrees of May 31, June 12,
Jiine 28, 1812. * Ibid., v. 17.

3 Histoire de V esprit public a Vegard de la France ; Affaires etrangeres,
Corr. Pol. : Westphalie, i.

x2

308 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

When in 1813, by unspeakable efforts, a new army was created
and equipped to replace the thousands who had left their bones
among the snows of Russia, the Kingdom of Westphalia was
utterly ruined. The property-tax alone swallowed one-fourth
of the income, and peasants left their lands untilled rather than
pay so crushing a tribute. So desperate was the situation that
a decree was actually passed to transfer these waste lands free
of all seigneurial charges to the communes, provided they made
themselves responsible for the payment of the land-tax. Nor
was it only the landed proprietor who suffered. A man in the
lowest class of life, without a square inch of real property, had
to pay eight francs thirty centimes to the State ; a poor family
of four members was charged thirty francs sixty centimes.
Meanwhile the total debt stood at 200,000 francs, and though
two-thirds of it had been repudiated, it was calculated that the
payment of interest alone upon the remaining third would
absorb almost one-fifth of the normal revenue *,

No one can seriously contend that Jerome was a good king,
nor that he was deficient in attractive qualities. He was good-
natured, affable, and clement, alive to the sufferings of his people
and capable of describing them with obvious sincerity. He
would have been delighted to play the role of a benevolent despot
and to encourage art and learning, though he had none of the
first and little of the second 2. The clemency which he showed
to the rebels of 1809 is both remarkable and highly creditable
to his heart and to his judgement. On one occasion in that
critical year, 1809, he showed a glimpse of higher qualities
still, of a touch of that intrepid flame of genius which blazed
out so often from the heart of his famous brother. It was on
April 22, when the peasants were known to be marching on the
capital, and the allegiance of the army was suspected to be
doubtful. Lecamus and Reinhard advised flight, but Jerome
was for brave counsels. Summoning his German officers, he

1 Malchus, Ueber die Verwaltung der Finanzen des Konigreichs Wed-
phalen.

2 He is recorded to have taken one book out of the Fredericianum
during his rule — Le precis historique de la vie de Madame la Comtesse de
Barry, avec son portrait. He did not return it. Zeitschrift des Vereins

fur Hessische Geschichte und Landeskunde, Neue Folge, ix. 286.

THE RUIN OF WESTPHALIA 309

addressed them as follows : ' I know the heart of soldiers, I do
not know that of traitors. Nevertheless, a man whom I have
loaded with benefits has basely betrayed me. If any one of you
repents of being bound, I give him back his word. In two hours1
time you will return to swear me a new oath. Those who
hesitate are free, and may range themselves with my foes.
I give my royal word that they can do so in all safety.
I would rather fight enemies than suspect traitors round me.1
All swore the oath, and the situation was saved. But although
capable, like Richard II and Edward IV of England, of occasional
bursts of effective action, he was despotic, irregular in mood, and
incurably selfish. No public interest was allowed to stand in the
way of his personal dissipations and ambitions. The scale of his
expenditure, personal and political, was criminally extravagant ;
the immorality of his Court has almost passed into a proverb.
Although there were good and able heads in the Westphalian
administration, and plenty of honest and excellent advice near
at hand, Jerome went his own base, vulgar ways, scattering
money on lacqueys and uniforms, like a parvenu in a comedy,
' dancing in the costume of Figaro to the sound of castanets,1
while his servants were unpaid and his exchequer empty. The
shy and placid Queen could offer him no sound advice, nor would
he have received it if she had. She, too, was fond of luxury,
and dazzled by Napoleon. * The ministers,1 she wrote on July 1,
1812, * see in you only the vassal of a small State which has need
of great economy ; but you must consider yourself also as the
brother of the Emperor, as a French prince whose lot is linked
to his.1 There was no danger of Jerome falling into such an
error. Even when he had returned in disgrace from the Moscow
campaign, and the last vestiges of public confidence in him had
been irretrievably shaken \ the old megalomania reasserted itself.
A second class of Knights of the Crown of Westphalia was created,
500 in number, with a pension of 120 francs apiece, and a long
edict was issued regulating the attributions of the Grand Chan-
cellor and Treasurer-General of the Order of the Crown. By
this time he had thrown all scruples to the wind. The concern

1 A police edict enforcing silence upon Russian affairs only deepened
the general impression that Jerome had been disgraced, and that he would
be removed from Westphalia when Napoleon returned from Russia.

310 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

was ruined and bankrupt ; with the remaining assets the debtor
might enjoy a last carnival.

It is doubtful whether even a Turgot could have made the
people happy and contented. The continental blockade crippled
the merchants ; the war loan and imperial exactions made bank-
ruptcy probable ; the French army of occupation was a heavy
burden upon the overtaxed populace. To all these even a Turgot
would have had to submit, for they were part of the imperial
policy which shaped and controlled the destinies of the kingdom.
It would have been difficult even for the most upright ruler to
maintain his self-respect, and what was still more important,
his administrative religion, in the face of the blighting and rest-
less interference of Napoleon. ' It is by the Moniteur? said
Jerome, bitterly, to the French ambassador, ' that I learn that
I lose a fourth of my territory and a third of my revenues. . . .
One does not cede men as one cedes a flock of sheep, or at least
one does not tell them so.1 On several occasions he threatened
to resign, so intolerable seemed the position to a king with any
pretensions to honour. He knew that Jollivet and Reinhard
reported all his actions to Paris, that he was closely watched,
and might at any moment be called upon to share the degrada-
tion and exile of his brother Louis. He knew that obedience to
the will of Napoleon would serve him better than a careful study
of the interests of his subjects. Alternately protesting and ser-
vile, he grew more and more reckless as the hand of his master
tightened on the kingdom. By 1812 he had ceased to govern 1.
A more conscientious man would have resigned, and a strong
man would have broken loose.

1 Revue Historique, xx. 356.

Chief Authorities : Administration des finances du royaume de West-
phalie, 1810 ; Berlepsch, Ueber Grundsteuer in Deutschland ; Bode,
Verhandlungen der koniglichen Prafectur des Werradepartements ; Biilau,
Geheime Geschichte ; Biilow, G. P. von, Biickblicke auf mein Leben, and
Beitrdge zur neueren braunschweigischen Geschichte ; Bulletin des lois du
royaume de Westphalie ; Ducasse, Les rois freres ; id., Memoires du rot
Jerome ; id. , Napoleon et le roi Jerome (in the Revue Historique , xvi-xxii) ;
Gehrens, Unter der vormaligen westph'dlischen Regierung erlittene dreimalige
Verhaftung und Exportation ; Geheime Geschichte des ehemaligen west-
ph'dlischen Hofes ; Goecke, Das Konigreich Westphalen ; Grimm, Kleinere
Schriften ; Hassel und Murhard, Westfalen unter Hieronymus Napoleon ;

THE RUIN OF WESTPHALIA 311

Heyne, Briefe ; Kleinschmidt, Geschichte des Konigreichs Westphalen ;
Lynckner, Geschichte der Insurrectionen unter dem westphdlischen Regiment ;
Malchus, Utber die Verwaltung der Finanzen des Konigreichs Westphalen ;
Masson, Napoleon et sa famille ; Memoir es du General Dedem de Gelder ;
F. Miiller, Kassel seit siebzig Jahren ; id. , Aus sturmvoller Zeit ; J. von
Muller, Briefe ; Minerva, July, 1826, Dec. 1840 ; Mazade, Correspondance
de Davout ; Le Moniteur Westphalien ; Neue Fakkeln, 1814 ; Rambaud,
V Allemagne sous Napoleon I ; Le Royaume de Westphalie, 1820 ; Strom-
beck, Darstellungen aus meinem Leben ; Specht, Das Konigreich Westphalen
im Jahre 1813 ; Thimme, Die inneren Zust'dnde des Kurfurstenthums Han-
nover unter der franzosisch-westphdlischen Herrschaft ; Voss, Die Zeiten ;
Zinserling, Westf'dlische Denkwiirdigkeiten ; Zeitschrift des Hist. Vereins
fur Niedersachsen, 1886-91.

CHAPTER XIV

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF FRANKFORT

c Tout pretre qui se mele des affaires politiques ne merite pas les egards
qui sont dus a son caractere.' — Napoleon.

We know Freiherr Carl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg,
Prince-Primate of the Rhenish Confederation, Archbishop of
Ratisbon, temporal sovereign of Frankfort and Aschaffenburg
and some thirty square miles in the centre of Germany. No
German had been more pliant or more useful to the Emperor
of the French, giving as he did the shelter of a pious and re-
spectable reputation to acts which, however rapid, dazzling, and
forcible, were signally lacking in the quality of unction.

The territory of the Prince-Primate, as modified in 1806,
though small and disjointed, contained within its limits two
famous cities, Ratisbon and Frankfort, the first the ancient seat
of the imperial Diet, and the second the crowning place of the
Emperors and the most important commercial town in Southern
Germany. Together with these he retained in the Principality
of Aschaffenburg a portion of the ancient Electorate of Mainz,
and the summer residence of the Prince-Electors.

It was now fourteen years since the free city of Frankfort had
been inducted into the methods and principles of French demo-
cracy. In 1792, General Custine proclaimed within its walls
the rights of man, and proceeded to levy a heavy contribution
upon his last and most opulent disciple. In the wars which
ensued, the burghers of Frankfort encountered many experiences
sufficient to trouble the dreams of an enthusiast. Prussians
and Hessians, Austrians and Walloons, were in turns quartered
upon them. The city was bombarded and partially burnt in
1796, and silver and shoe-buckles were melted down to meet
the demands of a. French general. If there was a fortune to be
made out of the business of war commissariat, this did not
compensate for other losses — for the decline in the value of
Austrian securities, for the interruption of the English trade,

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THE GRAND-DUCHY OF FRANKFORT 313

and for the French customs line which shut off the Trans-
rhenane market. Further the city incurred the special dis-
pleasure of Napoleon as being a great entrepot of English
wares1. Accordingly, in 1806, General Augereau was ordered
to levy a war-contribution of 4,000,000 francs upon the
Frankforters, and the town was deprived of its ancient freedom
and incorporated in the States of the Prince-Primate 2.

We need not here enter into the details of the constitution
of Frankfort. The Senate was extremely aristocratic, and so
exclusive, and jealous of its privileges, that no Roman Catholic
or Calvinist could obtain civic office. The finance was controlled
by a small committee of the Senate, and the utmost secrecy pre-
vailed as to the management of the municipal funds. Nothing
is so difficult to dislodge as a prosperous oligarchy, especially
when it is supported by historic sentiment, and since it must
be admitted that French military government was but an in-
different commendation of democratic blessings, it is not surpris-
ing if the burghers of Frankfort obstinately declined to deviate
from their dim, narrow, and comfortable ways.

There was, however, one community in the city which had
every reason to salute the advent of the Prince-Primate with
enthusiasm and hope. The Jews of Frankfort numbered five
hundred families, and were reputed to enjoy great wealth. But
they laboured under heavy disabilities, dating from the second
decade of the seventeenth century. They were confined to a
particular quarter of the town ; they were prevented from
frequenting the public promenades, from owning landed property,
or from engaging in agricultural and manual pursuits. Com-
merce, indeed, was open to them, but even in commerce the
Frankfort Jews were debarred from certain profitable under-
takings. The trade in arms, in spices, in corn and wine, the
retail trade in cloth and silk, were reserved to Christians.

On January 2, 1807, solemn homage was done in Frankfort

1 Erdmannsdorffer, v. 164. The Emperor spoke of Frankfort in 1805 as
a 'foyer de conspiration et de contrebande anglaise. '

2 Augereau was personally popular, but the volume of business done
per week was diminished by some 500,000 francs, and the burgesses were
pawning their clothes to supply French soldiers with food. Rapport de
G. Rapp, 14 avril 1806 ; A. F. iv. 1594.

314 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

to the new Prince. ' His bearing,' writes an observer, ' his
gracious behaviour won the sympathy of the Frankforters. He
is in the highest degree gracious, humane, civil. Gradually and
with the greatest caution he has undertaken the most necessary
alterations in the constitution of the town. The ruling burgo-
masters have been appointed for life ; he has named the first
syndic a member of his first Privy Council ; the others are now
Councillors of the High Court of Appeal ; the best of the
noblemen have been made his chamberlains ; the consistory has
been allowed to stand intact, only it has received an additional
member for educational affairs in the shape of Professor Vogt,
his librarian. Everybody is pleased that he is at the head here.
At his entry into the town, the numerous Jews gathered fresh
courage, hoping to be released from their slavery, and sought
all means to salute the Prince. The poor Jews were puffed up
with pride, owing to the kind behaviour of the Prince (in com-
parison with the former inhumanity of the town magistrates),
and his promise to lighten their yoke. If they appeared in
court and did not immediately get justice, they would behave
with great licence to the magistrate. " Good Herr Burgomaster,"
they would say, " do I get right or do I not get right ? No ?
But I know where Albini lives. I know where the Primate
lives." When the Emperor Napoleon drove through the town,
they ran from one gate to another with raging cries of " Our
Messiah," and returned drunk with victory. . . . Then the Sach-
senhauser \ to whom all this was utterly repulsive, spread ropes
across the streets to trip them up as they hurried home. As
you can imagine, this led to beatings and lawsuits. The temper
of the populace, Christian and Jew, became hotter and hotter.
Hitherto the Jews had been forbidden to be seen on the
promenades. Now they tried to walk in them. Christian
burghers beat them and cast them out. The Jews complained
to the Prince, and he at once permitted what had hitherto been
so shamefully forbidden. But soon the Christian judges found
that the Jews had no legal right to frequent these promenades,
because several years before they had refused to contribute to
them. The Prince would not contravene any legal right, and
took back his permission, but caused part of the very narrow
1 Sachsenhausen is a suburb of Frankfort.

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF FRANKFORT 315

and stiff promenade to be changed into an English garden, and
gave every one free right of entry V

The cheerful auguries of Jews, liberals, artisans, and Calvinists,
were not entirely disappointed. The Reformierten were allowed
to have church clocks and towers, to set up their own schools,
to enter into all guilds and trades, and to fill all public offices 2.
Primary assemblies in the fourteen different quarters of the
town were invited to elect two deputies apiece to a council
which should deliberate upon fiscal measures. The Prince-
Primate himself was present at each of the fourteen primary
assemblies, as also at the assembly of twenty-eight. Such
a revolution of affairs had never been known at Frankfort.
A body of shopmen and artisans, of professional men and clergy-
men, was invited to decide whether the town should endure
more indirect taxation 3, and not unnaturally they made an end
of such time-honoured patrician finance.

The question of the Jewish disabilities was one of considerable
difficulty, and the benevolent intentions of the Prince were
viewed with the keenest dislike by the Senate and burghers of
Frankfort. The permission given to the Jews in 1806, to walk
in the public promenades and to frequent the coffee-houses, was
regarded with extreme disfavour, and a letter from the Prince-
Primate to a French Jew named Singer, who had been turned
out of a coffee-house on the ground of his Hebrew extraction,
created a widespread feeling of unrest. The Senate, which was
still, despite the Dalbergian reforms, saturated with the old
patrician sentiment, led the anti-Semite movement. Owing to
the burning of a portion of the Jewish quarter in 1796, during
the bombardment of Kleber, some of the Jews had been received
into the Christian portions of the town. These it was now the
desire of the Senate to confine again within the limits of the
Ghetto. The merchants and traders of Frankfort had con-
structed their oppressive code with a view to the enjoyment of
industrial monopoly, and the protectionist will be inconsistent

1 Carl Ritter : ein Lebensbild, von D. G. Kramer.

2 The text of this decree (Dec. 25, 1806) can he read in Winkopp,
Der rheinische Bund, ii. 304-5.

8 Bulletin de Francfort, May 8, 1807 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. :
Allemagne, 733.

316 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

if he blames them for defending their pecuniary interests against
the dangerous competition of an astute and laborious race.
They represented to the Prince that any enlargement of the
rights of the Jews would spell the complete ruin of the whole-
sale and retail trade of the city.

Influenced by these representations, Dalberg and his Council
prepared an ordinance (November 30, 1807), the provisions of
which fall far short of the enlightened ideas which he shared
with his own councillors, and with the best Germans of his
time. The Jews were again to be restricted to a special quarter
of the town ; they were still to be treated as foreigners, whose
rights were both strictly defined and only conceded upon pay-
ment of a considerable yearly tribute. Numerous branches of
trade were still closed to them, but they were permitted to
acquire land, to hold mortgages, and to sublet to Christians
within the quarter assigned to them. Jewish apprentices could
be received by master- workmen, and brought up to a trade.
Jew children could attend the Frankfort gymnasium. The Jew
could be employed as a farm labourer, though he was not per-
mitted to acquire agricultural land, and consent was given to
the establishment of Jewish factories and workshops, provided
that none but Hebrew labour was employed in them.

On the other hand, the State took upon itself to exercise
the strictest and most jealous supervision over the Hebrew
community. The appointment of the Chief Rabbi and the two
sub-Rabbis was to be controlled by the Prince; the Hebrew
prayer and hymn books were to be censured, and no Hebrew
marriage could take place without the sanction of the Prince's
commissioner. The consistory of the Augustan Confession
(representing the religious views of the Frankfort patricians)
was to have jurisdiction over all Hebrew matrimonial disputes.
Jewish schools were to be under State supervision, the instruction
was to be given in German, nor could a private tutor be em-
ployed without special leave of the government l.

This ordinance produced a bitter feeling of disappointment

among the Jews, and it is said that some of the rich Jewish

houses thought of migrating from the town. The proposal

1 Neue Stdttigkeit und Schutzordnung der Judenschaft zu Frankfurt am
Main, Paris, Nov. 30, 1807 ; Winkopp, iv. 303-21.

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF FRANKFORT 317

that the Ghetto should be built up again was regarded with
peculiar repulsion, not shared however by Goethe, who was
a Frankfort burgher, and regarded the ordinance with marked
approval 1.

The complexity of the task which he had undertaken gradually
entered the mind of the elderly prelate. He was confronted
with a strong patrician opposition in Frankfort which he had
not the requisite force to overcome. French troops were
quartered upon him, and loud were the complaints of their
excesses and lack of discipline. The representatives of the
French Empire in Frankfort, General Hedouville and M. Bacher,
were continually urging him to a root and branch reform of his
State, but save in Aschaffenburg and in Wetzlar reform was
opposed. Dalberg knew that Bavaria was pleading for Ratisbon,
and he felt that her plea would be successful. In an access of
discouragement he wrote to Napoleon to ask him to organize
the primatial State. It was the Emperor's property, ' sa propriete?
When once an order was established, the Primate's zeal would,
he believed, be sufficient to maintain it. * But,' concluded the
letter with naivete and truth, c Heaven has not given me that
energetic genius which creates a new and better order of
things V

Notwithstanding this appeal no constitution came from Paris.
In October the Emperor passed through the town ' with the
greatest celerity,1 speaking a few words with the Prince at the
post-house 3. His thoughts were doubtless of Erfurt and Spain,
and with such problems in the air the organization of the
primatial State might well be left to a moment of greater leisure.

But in the spring of 1810 the internal affairs of Germany
again engaged the attention of Napoleon. Austria had been
beaten at Wagram in 1809, and was compelled to accept
a humiliating peace. There was no immediate prospect that she
would again disturb the peace of Europe. The allied, or rather
the subject, kings of the Rhenish Confederation were entitled
to receive some territorial benefits and rectifications of frontier,

1 Darmstaedter, Das Grossherzogthum Frankfurt, 256.

2 Dalberg to Napoleon, June 24, 1808 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. :
Allemagne, 734.

3 Bacher to Champagny, Oct. 15, 1808 ; ibid.

318 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

and as Champagny reminded his master, 455,000 German souls
and 13,939 square miles of German soil remained at the disposal
of the French government K As the Court of Bavaria clamoured
for Ratisbon, some compensation would have to be found for
the Prince-Primate. In a treaty signed February 16, 1810, at
Paris, between Dalberg and the French Empire, the former was
compensated for the loss of Ratisbon by the Principalities of
Hanau and Fulda, and his dominion so formed was in future to
be styled the Grand-Duchy of Frankfort. The new grand-
duchy contained about 100 square miles and some 300,000 in-
habitants. Save for the enclave of Wetzlar, it was geographic-
ally continuous, but so curiously shaped that the main roads
connecting Hanau with Fulda and Aschaffenburg respectively
necessarily passed through the dominions of other sovereigns.
The populations, swept so suddenly into a common political net,
differed widely in temperament and tradition. Fulda was
Catholic and of a rigid antique type. The men of Hanau were
' reformed.'' The proud burghers of Frankfort looked down with
disdain upon the ignorant Catholic peasantry of Aschaffenburg.
The divergences, the hostilities, the distrusts, the suspicions,
were curiously strong. Yet the woodsmen of the Spessart, the
market-gardeners of the Main valley, the ploughmen and herds-
men of the Rhone, would all meet at times in the market-square
at Frankfort, and chaffer their wares under the shadow of the
Romer, the symbol of a dim and vanished unity.

In the mere matter of acres the Prince-Primate was a gainer
by the recent changes. But there were certain harsh and un-
pleasant features in the bargain to which he had affixed his
signature. He had to provide an endowment for the Dukes of
Eckmuhl and Wagram from his share of the Rhenish tolls, and
4,200 men for the army of the Confederation ; the Emperor re-
served for his own use domains in Fulda and Hanau to the value
of 600,000 francs, while the remainder of the domainial rents in
these principalities were to go to the creditors of the Rhenish
tolls. Again, France took the opportunity of shifting on to
the shoulders of the Grand-Duke of Frankfort her share of the
debts of the Electorate of Mainz, while finally it was provided
that upon the decease of the reigning Grand-Duke, his princi-
1 Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol, : Allemagne, 738.

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF FRANKFORT 319

pality was to lapse to the King's stepson, Eugene Beauharnais,
Viceroy of Italy. An additional article stipulated that the
Code Napoleon and the organic laws of the French administrative
regime should be instantly put into operation in the grand-
duchy.

The nomination of Prince Eugene to the succession of the
grand-duchy was doubtless an unpleasant surprise to the city
of Frankfort. It will be remembered that four years before,
Dalberg in an access of prudence and servility had nominated
the Emperor's uncle, Cardinal Fesch, as his coadjutor and
political successor. But although the prospect of a Fesch
domination in Frankfort might have been acceptable to Napoleon
in 1806, it was far otherwise in 1810. In the quarrel which
had arisen between Napoleon and the Papacy, Fesch had
espoused the cause of the Church, and the Emperor, having
already annexed the Papal States, discovered a conviction that
the temporal rule of spiritual persons was inconsistent with the
spirit of the times. While he punished the ingratitude and
independence of his uncle, Napoleon determined to reward the
loyalty of his stepson. If the Emperor's marriage with Marie
Louise was productive of an heir, it might be well that the boy
should be entitled King of Rome, and that the whole of the
Italian peninsula should be entrusted to his rule. In such
a case it would be necessary to provide a solace for Eugene,
and the Grand-Duchy of Frankfort would give to the husband
of a Bavarian princess a commanding position in Germany. In
any case, it would be gratifying to the Court of Vienna to feel
that the Beauharnais dynasty was not destined to reign per-
manently in Milan.

It may, perhaps, be conjectured that Napoleon was dissatisfied
with the conduct and bearing of the burghers of Frankfort.
The main object of the Emperor's care in 1810 was the
vigorous enforcement of the continental blockade. Not a yard
of English cloth or a bale of English wool was to find a market
on the continent. The city of Frankfort, though for four
years it had been subject to Dalberg, still preserved the linea-
ments of its ancient constitution, and its burghers were guilty
of the unpardonable sin. They bought and were suspected of
buying English wares. The prevention or detection of so

320 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

heinous an offence could most easily be effected in a Gallicized
province.

In this miniature State nothing was suggestive of permanence.
It was to be governed by an elderly prelate ; it was to go upon
his death to a stranger ; its finances were crippled in order that
Frenchmen might be spared taxation ; it was subjected to
specified military burdens as a member of the Confederation of
the Rhine ; it was made up of a concourse of the most hetero-
geneous parts, two imperial towns, a lay principality, two spiritual
territories, and several counties and knightly possessions ; and
it was devoid of a natural frontier. Finally, it was not even
under the complete control of its nominal ruler, for the director
of the imperial domains, Gentili, exercised an imperium in
imperio, and exasperated the manager of the grand-ducal
finance by his exorbitant pretensions.

Six months after the formation of the grand-duchy, the
Prince-Primate offered to make the French resident at Frankfort
his principal minister, with a right of inspecting all the branches
of the administration. If Bacher was instructed to decline, it
was because France was already completely mistress of the
situation. ' The Grand-Duke,' wrote Hedouville to Champagny
on December 15, 1810, 'has kindly permitted that henceforth
all the acts of his government shall be communicated to me
before being published, so that I may transmit them to your
Excellency before you are informed of them by the Gazettes.'
While the French resident controlled the policy of the Prince-
Primate, the French army awed his subjects. In October and
November 1810, a military commission sat in Frankfort for the
purpose of detecting and burning English and colonial mer-
chandise. The Grand-Duke wrote personally to several of the
most distinguished merchants to urge them to comply with
the imperial decree \ and goods to the value of 865,000 francs
were publicly burnt in the streets of Frankfort. ' The domi-
ciliary visits,' says a French witness, i were conducted with the
greatest rigour, not only among traders and merchants, but
also in private houses V and, to add to the indignity, the bonfires

1 A. F. iv. 1654.

2 Bacher to Champagny , Nov. 1^ 1810 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol.
Allemagne, 738.

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF FRANKFORT 321

were lit to the strains of the military band. The same scenes
of wanton destruction were enacted all over the duchy. General
Molito^s researches in Fulda extended even to the country
villages, and resulted in seizures valued at 440,000 francs ; and
if General Friant's holocaust of colonial wares at Hanau only
amounted to half this sum, it was none the less viewed with the
greatest repugnance *.

Meanwhile the army head quarters at Frankfort was costing
the citizens 30,000 francs daily, without counting the expenses
of the great train of artillery which was voyaging through the
duchy from Magdeburg 2. ' The merchants of this city,' wrote
Hedouville, ' are sufficiently prudent to allow us to hear groans
rather than murmurs V It was, then, to the accompaniment of
audible groans and suppressed murmurs, that the new civil
machinery of the grand-duchy was to be set working.

By the wish of the Prince-Primate, the constitution was
drawn up upon the model provided by Westphalia. The
separate provincial and municipal constitutions were abolished,
and the duchy received with some delays and much dislike the
boon of legal, administrative, and fiscal unity 4. The privileges
of the nobility suffered the same fate as the municipal in-
dependence of the capital, and it was proclaimed that all men
should be equal before the law. But the liberty of the subject
was not equally assured, for although toleration was extended
to the recognized forms of worship, there was no guarantee for
the freedom of the press, for the freedom of public meeting, or
for freedom of speech. On October 10, 1810, the Prince-
Primate, at the desire of Napoleon, ordered the cessation of
all the political newspapers in the grand-duchy. In future
there was to be but one official organ, the editor of which was

1 A. F. iv. 1654.

2 Beust to Feltre, Aug. 22, 1810 ; A. F. iv. 1653.

3 Hedouville to Champagny, Nov. 18, 1810 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr.
Pol. : Allemagne, 741.

4 It was not till March 1811 that a central Bureau of Finance was
established at Frankfort. Until then separate financial systems existed
for Aschaffenburg, Hanau, Frankfort, and Fulda. ' It is evident,' writes
Bacher, Jan. 17, 1811, e that the dethroned aristocracy seeks to perpetuate
itself under the veil of mystery with which all the operations of finance
were formerly enveloped.' Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Allemagne, 741.

FISHER Y

322 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

to be named by the Minister of Police l. The precaution was
superfluous, for the servile and arid journalism of the duchy
had been for the last four years steadily losing its readers under
the petrifying censure of the French resident. It is needless to
add that conscription was part of the fundamental law of the
new State, but though this might have been anticipated, a
Primatial decree making the obligation retroactive came as an un-
pleasant surprise 2. The new fiscal system of the duchy was strictly
drawn up on the French model by M. de Bilderbeck, ' the director
of the domains in the service of France,' and the stamp and
registration tax were unpopular novelties. ' In general,' says
Hedouville, ' men have great difficulty in renouncing their
ancient privileges to subject themselves to the French regime V
Under these circumstances nothing is more surprising than
the readiness with which Germans accepted posts in a govern-
ment avowedly formed upon the French model, and in the
interests of a French neighbour. Dalberg was able to com-
mand the best abilities and the most respectable names of the
grand-duchy, and the new machinery supplied a stimulant to
the torpid wits of an incurious population. The debates of
the Council of State which sat in the Electoral chamber of the
Romer often resolved themselves into a lively conflict between
the conservative councillors of Frankfort and Hanau, and the
more enlightened bureaucrats from the old Electorate of Mainz.
' The great battles of the time,' says Darmstaedter, ' the
opposition between industrial compulsion and industrial freedom,
between French and German law, between bureaucratic regula-
tion and self-government, were here fought out in detail in the
quiet chamber of the old RathausV The Primate and the
ministers, however, assisted by the powerful argument supplied
by the French garrison, were able to prevail against the forces
of reaction. The trade-guilds were abolished, the duchy
divided into four departments, and the leading principles of

1 Salomon, Geschichte des deutschen Zeitungswesens , 111 if.

8 Fenelon to Champagny, Feb. 26, 1811 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. :
Allemagne, 742.

8 Schwebel to Cbampagny, Feb. 27, 1811 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. :
Allemagne, 742. Hedouville to Champagny, April 2 and May 17, 1811 ;
ibid. 743. 4 Darmstaedter, 98.

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF FRANKFORT 323

French administration — the division of the executive and ju-
dicial powers, and the concentration of executive power in
the hands of a single person — were adopted, to the great
expedition of affairs1.

In the matter of legislation the Westphalian precedent was
followed, and it was arranged in the constitution that a
representative assembly was to be summoned, to consider pro-
jects of laws submitted by the Council of State, to receive the
yearly budget, and to consent to taxation2. The electors to
this body were to be named by the sovereign for life. In every
department these electors would form an electoral college,
composed, two-thirds of wealthy proprietors, one-sixth of the
richest merchants and manufacturers, and one-sixth of men
distinguished in science and art. Each of the four electoral
colleges so constituted was required to choose three proprietors,
one merchant or manufacturer, and one savant to represent
it in the Assembly. On October 8, 1810, the members of the
colleges met in the capitals of their respective departments.
Their work was done with despatch, and on October 15 the
first and only parliament of the grand-duchy was opened in
Hanau, which had been selected for the purpose on account of
its central position.

To the genial despot of Frankfort the meeting of the States
afforded the harmless luxury of a liberal demonstration. Three
projects of law were submitted, discussed in committee, and
passed without a single black ball. On October 26 the Assembly
dispersed, after a session which had lasted eleven days. Nor
was it ever again collected together.

The introduction of the French system of local government
was attended with some benefits. While the prefects of Hanau,
Fulda, and AschafFenburg were men who had already dis-
tinguished themselves in the government of those provinces, the
important prefecture of Frankfort was confided to an en-
lightened aristocrat, Max von Gunderode, who had held ad-
ministrative posts in several small principalities, and was now

1 The frontiers of the four departments follow the irregular lines of the
older territories, as is shown in the map.

* The drafting of the Organisationspatent, Aug. 16, 1810, is defective. It
merely states that no poll-tax can he levied without consent of the Assembly.

y2

324 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

prepared to address himself with zeal to the many problems
of municipal government in Frankfort. It is true that the
departmental councils were in the first instance nominated by
the Prince-Primate, but they were none the less capable of
performing a useful role by ventilating local grievances and
suggesting local remedies. ' The memoirs of the three depart-
mental councils of AschafFenburg, Fulda, and Hanau,"' says
M. Darmstaedter, 'remind the reader of the cahiers of 1789.1
The council of Aschaffenburg petitions for the abolition of
labour services, the subdivision of the Almend, and freedom for
the corn trade. The men of Hanau and Fulda wish that more
waste land might be reclaimed, more fallow brought under
cultivation, that some system of insurance against hailstorm
and cattle disease might be started, that measures might be
taken against Hebrew usury. Fulda is very Catholic. It prays
for moral legislation against brandy, dancing, gambling in
foreign lotteries. The AschafFenburgers wish for the equaliza-
tion of the land-tax, the men of Fulda for the abolition of the
property-tax ; the men of Hanau complained, as well they
might, of military burdens. But on the whole, in these three
departments it is the local, the agrarian questions which
interest. For high politics the councils have little taste1.

A bolder spirit, however, animated the council of Frankfort.
With narrow municipal jealousy they complained that so many
places had been given to ' foreigners.' Being men of substance
themselves, they desired to substitute indirect taxes for the
property-tax, seeing that the indirect taxes would fall upon
the poor. They complained that the police was too numerous,
the project of school reform too costly, and that a unversity
(which had been proposed) would not be suitable in a city of
commerce. They denounced the harshness of the conscription,
and the unequal incidence of the burden of billeting. It was
remarked, not without irony, that in spite of the express terms
of the constitution, laws were frequently published in the
government organ without the consent of the Estates, and
finally, a wish was expressed that this body might be convoked,
and that no new laws or burdens might be imposed upon the
duchy without its consent. These frank and selfish criticisms

1 Darmstaedter, 113.

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF FRANKFORT 325

nettled the philanthropic autocrat of the grand-duchy, and
the prefect and two councillors were summoned to receive a
rebuke from his lips 1i The departmental council of Frank-
fort had said its say, nor was it ever again summoned, and
though the councils of Hanau and Aschaffenburg once met
in 1813, it was only to distribute military burdens. And so the
government of the grand-duchy became an undiluted bureaucracy.
In the villages we suspect that the change was of the
slightest. Institutions are unlike machines. They depend very
much upon the men who work them. Now the men who
worked the new French institutions in the villages of the
grand-duchy were the same solid, phlegmatic Teutons who had
worked the old German institutions, the quaint archaic pro-
ducts from which Jacob Grimm has distilled poetry. A grand-
ducal ordinance of November 19, 1810, pronounced that in
all the rural communities and smaller towns, the old officials
should continue to act. The Stadtrath and Dorfgericht became
the municipal council ; the burgomasters and Schultheissen
were christened mayors, and were permitted to walk about in
red and white scarves. It was the old caste in a new play — -
a play which none of the actors understood, and few were
zealous to learn. The performance was slovenly and listless ;
there were long pauses for the prompter, and when the curtain
fell, little had been acted and less learnt, and all that the
players remembered was that the gestures were puzzling, and
the piece too stimulating for their taste.

In the realm of law there was a revolution. On September
15, 1809, the Grand-Duke announced that the Civil Code
would be introduced on May 1, 1810. The family council
and the justices of the peace were recommended as beneficial
institutions 'to secure the property of families, and to lessen
the noxious quality of litigation by reasonable arbitration.1
The grand-duchy had neither justices of the peace nor notaries,
ushers nor proctors. It had, on the contrary, fiefs and entails.
An ordinance of July 25, 1810, therefore determined that the
French Civil Code should be regarded as the common civic law
book from January 1, 1811, though local custom and precedent

1 They were, however, subsequently invited to lunch. Darmstaedter,
116.

326 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

was still to be respected wherever the French law shed no certain
light.

Civil marriage was introduced, and the keeping of the civic
registers entrusted to lay persons. Marriages, however, were
not to be concluded before a competent priest or pastor had
testified that no ecclesiastical obstacle stood in the way ; nor
could a divorce be pronounced save with the testimony of
an authorized ecclesiastic. In this way Dalberg harmonized his
duties as a priest of the Roman Church, his sensibility as an
enlightened reformer, and his timidity as a member of the
Rhenish Confederation.

Von Mulzer, one of the Frankfort councillors, defended the
introduction of this foreign law, saying that in truth it was less
foreign than the Corpus Juris, and contained within it many
German formulae. His contention was probably correct. In
any case, the emendations which the councillors of the grand-
duchy thought fit to propose are not very numerous or im-
portant, and the Civil Code found general acceptance.

The improvement of the penal law was yet more important,
for the country was still governed by the barbarous Carolina,
although it had ceased to put its worst provisions into practice.
The consequence of having a penal law which is too severe for
the times is that the administration of the law is not severe
enough, and it was to meet this need that the French Penal Code
was adopted in the grand-duchy l.

In the first four years of the Prince-Primate's rule (1806-10),
great improvements were introduced into the judicial organiza-
tion of Frankfort. The substitution of one system for many
systems, the severance of justice from administration, a stricter
definition of the competence of the courts and of the course of
appeals, were acknowledged benefits. Litigation was made more
expeditious and less costly, and we are told that cases which in
former times would have lasted a year were now settled in the
course of a few weeks. But there was still privilege ; there was
still an aristocratic organization. The nobles must be judged
by noble Schoffen, and the Houses of Frauenstein and Lim-
burg had the perpetual right to two places on the judicial
bench which tried civil cases in the second instance, and

1 Feb. 19, 1812.

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF FRANKFORT 327

sat as a court of first instance over privileged persons and
criminals.

When the grand -duchy was established in 1810 further
changes were introduced. A Ministry of Justice was created,
and the Council of State assumed the additional duties of a
court of cassation. It was not, however, till January 1, 1813,
that the system of judicial organization was reformed in
all its branches, and adjusted to the French model. Then all
privilege was swept away, and, save for the spiritual jurisdiction
of the Catholic Church, the status of persons was no longer per-
mitted to affect the composition of the law courts. While two
courts of appeal were established at Frankfort and Aschaffen-
burg respectively, each consisting of a president and six judges,
in the four departmental capitals and in Wetzlar the existing
courts were continued as courts of first instance. By a wise
economy the functions of the justice of the peace were combined
with those of the district mayor. But some judicial powers still
remained to the aristocracy, for a clause in the act of the
Rhenish Confederation preserved to the lords ' basse et moyenne
jurisdiction en matieres civiles et criniinelles, and this was exer-
cised in two degrees, roughly corresponding to the petty and
quarter sessions of our justices of the peace.

A battle arose over procedure. While Seeger, a typical Roman
jurist of the German Reichsstadt, wished to import only so much
of the French procedure as was necessitated by the terms of the
Civil Code, the Grand-Duke, more expansive and receptive, pleaded
for the orality and publicity of the new French law. ' Publicity,1
he said, 'is the palladium of truth and justice. The English,
who are of German origin, are still true to this principle.' But
though the lineage of written procedure was Roman rather
than Teutonic, Dalberg, failing to convince his Council, was
compelled to assent to a compromise. The procedure of the
grand-ducal law court remained for the most part written,
secret, inquisitorial ; but in criminal cases there was (1) a
public examination (Vernehmung) of the accused after the
instruction, and (2) a second public examination in which the
accused, his counsel, and the prosecution were heard, but no
witnesses. The Grand-Duke pleaded for the jury, reminding
his Council of the old German scabini ; but here again he

328 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

was defeated by the stubborn conservatism of the Frankfort
jurists.

Nevertheless, there were some marked improvements. Torture
was abolished; the courts were instructed to form a free judge-
ment upon the total moral impression left upon their minds by
the evidence ; and by the prohibition of the practice of referring
points of law to university faculties, a greater sense of responsi-
bility was given to the bench, and a vast economy effected in
time and trouble 1.

Unity, swiftness, definition, equality before the law, improved
procedure, the elimination of archaic barbarism, these were the
advantages of the new system. The peasant might complain
that he had to walk further to get his justice, but the justice
was better when he got it. Nevertheless, in the capital, where
the Roman jurists had so firm a footing, these new ways were
from the first suspect, and the Civil Code, the Penal Code, and
the Code of Procedure were abolished in 1814, as soon as the
power of Napoleon was broken. But the organization of the
courts was left practically unchanged.

It would appear that the educational policy of the Grand-
Duke was marked by a considerable measure of zeal, modera-
tion, and enlightenment. A general curator of public instruction
was appointed to supervise all the educational institutions of
the duchy. In each department the prefect was assisted by
a committee of inspectors, partly clerical and drawn from all
the confessions, and partly lay. This committee recommended
schoolmasters to the curator, examined candidates for the post
of teacher, saw that the programmes were properly carried out,
and administered the funds allocated to educational purposes.
The delicate question of denominational instruction was solved
by a compromise. While the primary schools remained, as they
had always been, denominational, their course of studies was
prescribed and their teaching controlled by the State. The
religious instruction given in these schools was placed under
the supervision of the parish priest, but he was bound to report
twice a year to the educational committee. For the secular

1 Schroder (Lehrbuch der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, 812) describes the
' Aktenversendung ,' a useful practice when courts were weak and ignorant,
and only abolished in the smaller German States in 1879.

THE GRAND-DUCHY OF FRANKFORT 329

instruction the mayor of the district or commune was primarily
responsible. On the other hand, the secondary schools were
entirely divested of a denominational character, and it was
arranged that religious instruction should be given simul-
taneously to members of all the confessions.

The communes were compelled to keep their schools in re-
pair, for which purpose they were permitted to raise a school
rate, and empowered to receive a grant in aid charged upon the
stamp-tax. Private schools could only be started with the per-
mission of the government, and were placed under government
supervision. The Prince-Primate, however, was not exempt
from one of the dominant foibles of his German contemporaries,
and, having a little State of his own, attempted to stuff it at
once with all the educational apparatus. So a law-school was
established at Wetzlar for the purpose of instructing the grand-
duchy in the French codes and their German offshoots, and all
intending judges were warned that they must take the Wetzlar
degree. So, too, a school of medicine must be started at Frank-
fort, a school of forestry at Aschaffenburg, while a university
containing some seventy students was allowed to linger on at
the last-named town — the remnants of the old High School of
Mainz. The system was half French, half German. The special
schools for law, medicine, and forestry were French ; so, too,
was the curator and the State control. But the schools were
not barracks, the scholars were not boarders, and there was
a place still left for ecclesiastical supervision.

When the grand -duchy was established in 1810 a strong
current had set in for the removal of Jewish disabilities. In
the Kingdom of Westphalia the Jews, as we have seen, were put
upon a footing of complete equality with the Christians in 1808,
and both in Baden and in Bavaria they were admitted to civic
rights in the course of 1808 and 1809. It is true that certain
restrictions upon trade and settlement were imposed upon the
Jews by French legislation in 1808, owing to the growing evil
of Hebrew usury in the agricultural districts ; and there was
some ground for the advice given to the Prince-Primate by one
of his councillors, Eberstein, that in view of the backwardness of
the rural Jews in Fulda, complete and universal equality should
not be insisted on. But the Westphalian example weighed more

332 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

been described to us by an eye-witness. He arrived in the
afternoon of October 31, 1813, after Leipzig had been lost, and
the Bavarians under Wrede had gone over to the allies ; and
the Prince-Primate, having discovered that 'to sustain the
system of the concordat at this juncture ' his presence was
necessary at Constance, had bolted from the sinking ship.
Staying in the house of the Bethmanns, who were leading
merchants in the city, Napoleon spoke some kind words to
a trembling deputation. 'Be wiser than Wrede. The town
has nothing to fear. The cannonading' (which was audible)
' is a trifle.'' The next morning, about midday, the carriage drove
up to take him away. As he descended the steps he saw a lady
in the crowd, with her hand behind her back. A sudden spasm
of fear caught him, and he cried out sharply, ' Show your hand ! \
Then his carriage blotted him from sight, and thundered away
towards France 1.

1 Eilers, Meine Wanderung durcJis Leben, 229 ; Hedouville to Cham-
pagny, July 21_, 1813 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Allemagne, 731.

Chief Authority : Paul Darmstaedter, Das Grossherzogthum Frankfurt
(a very complete and careful monograph, which has been taken as the basis
of this chapter). Wherever I have utilized an authority not mentioned in
Darmstaedter's bibliography, I have given a reference in a footnote.

CHAPTER XV

THE HANSEATIC TOWNS

* C'est par l'argeut qu'il faut tenir les hommes a argent.'
' II y a en general une presomption defavorable contre ceux qui manient
de l'argent.' — Napoleon.

The position of the Hanseatic towns after the breach of the
Treaty of Amiens may well excite commiseration. If commerce
can have a memory, a sentiment, or a conscience, these cities
might have expected favourable treatment from France. They
had been excellent customers for French wine and sugar, and
in the winter of 1794-5 several provinces of France had been
saved from starvation by immense consignments of corn from
Hamburg and Bremen. They had opened their hospitality to
a large number of French emigrants, and in the struggle between
France and England they both professed and observed a strict
neutrality. Yet their situation and resources were such that
they were doomed to suffer by the war. On the one hand the
Elbe and the Weser were blockaded by the English, on the
other hand the cities were forced to lend money upon dis-
advantageous terms to the French. While British men-of-war
ruined the maritime trade, French consuls inspected the pass-
ports of travellers, and supervised the policy and movements of
the municipal senates 1.

Many motives combined to urge Napoleon to the control of
the Hanseatic cities. They were wealthy, and could therefore
feed, clothe, and support the conscripts of the Empire. They
harboured a maritime population, and could therefore contribute
sailors to his fleet. There was a considerable English and
French royalist colony in Hamburg, and the Hamburg Corre-
spondent, with its circulation of forty thousand copies a week,
was the oracle of most of the coffee-houses in North Germany.

1 Some useful information as to the effect of the English blockade upon
the commerce of Hamburg has been collected by Hitzigrath (Hamburg und
die Continentalsperre, 1900). It was the cause of 193 bankruptcies.

334 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Add to this the fact that Hamburg was the chief distributor
of English goods on the continent, that Hamburg and Bremen
commanded respectively the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser,
and that the advance of a French army into the heart of
Germany would be threatened if these cities, so accessible to
England, were left unsecured upon the flank, and the action of
Napoleon is fully accounted for. In 1805 he was at war with
England and he had designs upon Germany, and seeing in the
control of the Hanseatic cities a means of throttling British
commerce, of muzzling the German press, and of fortifying his
own military position, he sent his secretary Bourrienne to
Hamburg as minister plenipotentiary to the Circle of Lower
Saxony. There he was to observe the policy of the Northern
Courts, to censure the press, and to secure the expulsion of
Englishmen and emigres from the Hanseatic territories. From
that time forward the ' free cities ' were placed under the close
inspection of the French police 1.

After the battle of Austerlitz the French appetite grew, and on
February 25 a new set of instructions was issued to Bourrienne.
He was commanded to persuade the magistrates of the three
towns that they had everything to fear from Prussia, and every-
thing to gain from France. ' You will induce them,' the docu-
ment continued, ' to offer that which it would not be proper for
France to demand. The intention of His Majesty the Emperor
is that the Hanseatic towns should first furnish a lump sum of
6,000,000 francs, and every year during the wars which France
will have to sustain, a sum of 2,000,000 payable by quarters
every three months. When the offers which shall be made to
you, but which it is your duty adroitly and artistically to
provoke, shall answer to the intentions of His Majesty, you will
transmit them to your government as propositions new to it,
but such as in your opinion should be favourably received. You
will cause them to hope that such will be the case, and you will
even go so far as to promise that it shall be so 2.'

Bourrienne had many conferences with the magistrates of
Hamburg, in the hopes of convincing them that the protection

1 Bourrienne, Memoires, vi. 307, 346.

2 These instructions (Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Hamburg, 119) are
not quite accurately represented in Bourrienne's Memoires, vii. 138-9.

Tojcbcepcuje 334

THE RHINE
AND

HANSEATIC DEPARTMENTS

IN 1811

Mites

Dsrtn'shire i. Stan fore* Lt<f.

Oxfora

THE HANSEATIC TOWNS 335

of the Emperor was well worth the sum demanded. The
magistrates urged that the sum was too high, that the town
was less rich since the war, and finally it was politely intimated
by the Senate that circumstances did not permit them to accept
the generous proposition of the Emperor.

As Napoleon was anxious that the three cities should acknow-
ledge his protection, so Prussia was desirous of incorporating
them in a Federation of Northern States which should serve to
counterbalance the Rhenish Confederacy. The advances of the
Prussian agent, the Baron de Grote, were received as coldly as
the insidious proposition of Bonaparte. The Hanseatic towns
let it be clearly understood that their main interest lay in
preserving the neutrality which had been guaranteed to them
in 1803, and in preventing any belligerent powers from entering
into their respective territories *.

This word had hardly been spoken when war broke out
between France and Prussia. Without warning, without
apology, without explanation, French troops occupied the
three cities. 'My brother,' wrote Napoleon from Berlin to
Louis, King of Holland (November 4, 1806), ' Marshal Mortier
ranges himself under your command in Hanover and in the
Hanseatic towns. . . . My intention is that you divide your
army into two corps ; that you give to Marshal Mortier the
command of the eighth corps of the Grand Army ; that you
form it so that it amounts at least to 12,000 men, with as much
cavalry as possible, and twenty-four pieces of artillery. With
this corps Marshal Mortier will go to Hamburg, will take
possession of the town, as also of Bremen and Liibeck V It is
rarely given to belligerents to preserve an attitude of entire
correctness, and if the occupation of these towns had been
merely a precaution to prevent their falling into the hands of
English, Prussians, or Swedes, the action of Bonaparte might
be condoned. General Bliicher, fleeing from the field of Jena,
had made his last stand under the walls of Liibeck, and that
city had experienced to the full the cruelty and the licence of
victorious soldiery. A temporary military occupation until the
conclusion of the war, an occupation which respected the property

1 Cf. Abel's memorandum of July 8, 1806 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr.
Pol. : Hamburg, 119. 2 Corr. xiii. 475-6, no. 11,171.

336 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

of these neutral republics, and was studious to soothe their
wounded feelings of honour, would have had much to recommend
it. This, however, was far from being the spirit of Napoleon's
instructions to Mortier. That officer was commanded to disarm
the inhabitants of Hamburg, to occupy Cuxhaven, to seal the
river hermetically so as to prevent any Englishman escaping,
to assure himself of the houses of the English bankers, to put
seals on the bank of Hamburg, to seize all English merchandise,
to arrest the English and Prussian consuls, and to prevent all
communication with England. ' You will send a regiment,''
Napoleon continues, 'to do the same thing at Bremen. . . .
Provisionally you will interdict the navigation of the Elbe and
the Weser to all nations. You will get hold of everything
which belongs to Prussia and England. There is a good deal
of building-wood which belongs to Prussia. I need not tell you
that the principal point is to begin by disarming and arresting
all native Englishmen, even English bankers established in the
country for twenty years ; they must answer to me for French
travellers arrested on the sea. You will send them all to
France. Your command will extend to Liibeck, where you will
perform the same operation V

Marshal Mortier, a clement and popular soldier, refrained
from carrying out to the letter these barbarous instructions.
The bank of Hamburg, the main pillar of Hanseatic credit,
was spared in deference to the entreaties of the burghers. No
English banker was deported, for the excellent reason that no
English banker, indeed no Englishman, save the five members
of the English factory, was left in the town. It is true that
the French ordered the dissolution of the English factory, whose
charter dated from 1611, and that its surviving members were
under sentence of deportation to Verdun. But the sentence, partly
through the good offices of Bourrienne, was never carried into
effect, and by naturalizing themselves as burghers of Hamburg,
and appropriating the funds of an ancient institution, the last
of the English merchant-adventurers obtained security and
affluence 2.

1 Corr. xiii. 542, no. 11,267.

2 Bourrienne, vii. 176-8; Corr. xiv. 17, no. 11,356; Hamburg Com-
plaints : Parliamentary Papers, 1835.

THE HANSEATIC TOWNS 337

In all three cities strenuous efforts were made to conjure the
wrath of the Emperor, and while Lubeck, which had been com-
mended by Bernadotte, sent a suppliant deputation, and Bremen
accepted the inevitable with grumbles, Hamburg assured His
Majesty that her submission to the Berlin decrees was and
should be entire. Nevertheless, no Prussian or English cities
could have been more harshly treated. The military occupation
was accompanied by embezzlement, by insolence, by financial
exactions, and it had come to stay. The excesses of the
illiterate Clement at Bremen, the rapacity of General Gratian
and his Dutch troops at Lubeck, and the profligate reign —
happily a brief one — of General Dupas at Hamburg, when the
French General's scullions drank champagne in the kitchen, and
the head quarter's mess-bill exceeded 80,000 francs a month,
these were memories not easily effaced. Shoes and clothes, caps
and corn, wood to the amount of 140,000 francs, were freely
requisitioned, and, while the Dutch staff-officers ate and drank
5,000 francs a day at Bremen, a fraudulent inspector of reviews
made a fortune out of Lubeck. The Savings Bank at Hamburg,
one of the most useful institutions for encouraging thrift among
the needy, was seized under the pretext that it was a deposit
of foreign money. The famous Hamburg Poor-House, pro-
bably the best foundation of the kind then existing in Europe,
was converted into a military barrack, and the whole establish-
ment turned adrift without a penny of compensation. The
Eimbecksche Haus, a municipal wine-cellar, dating from the
fourteenth century, and one of the most popular resorts of the
town, was seized by the French soldiers, who sold or swallowed
the priceless vintages. All kinds of extortions were practised
on the pretext that desirable objects were of English manu-
facture. There was a perfect plague of passports, and three
bottles of wine could not be transferred from house to house
without an official permit. Some of the generals, notably
Bernadotte, were honourably distinguished for true French
courtesy and probity, but these were exceptions, and as the
troops were, for the most part, raw conscripts, and the officers
men of low birth, acts of gross insolence were not un-
common. Everywhere English goods were confiscated, and their
owners compelled to repurchase them from the French govern-

FISHER Z

338 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

ment '. On this pretext 16,000,000 francs were extracted from
Hamburg, and about 3,000,000 from Lubeck and Bremen. In
vain did Bourrienne attempt to secure a respite for the un-
fortunate towns. The Emperor insisted that the money should be
paid on the nail 2. Nor was this the end. These towns which
provide pay, food, lodging, hospitals for the French troops, are
required in 1808 to contribute 3,000 sailors to the French navy.
The quota was excessive in a population of 200,000, and the
Emperor in the end had to be content with one-sixth of the
original figure. But, meanwhile, not a whaler was allowed to
quit the Elbe and the Weser, and the maritime population was
kept, so to speak, under seal, in order that so precious a material
might not evaporate.

In the winter of 1808-9 there was a general cry of misery.
The Burgomaster and Senate of Hamburg represented (January
25, 1809) that out of a population of 100,000 there were
scarcely 2,000 capable of contributing, while in Lubeck 1,050
families, constituting one-fourth of the population, were obliged
to have recourse to public charity. The price of food was
constantly rising; all credit was lost, and it was doubtful
whether the cities would ever recover their old markets 3. So
profound was the discouragement that many rich inhabitants
of Hamburg sold their shares in business to buy land in Holstein
and Mecklenburg4. There was only one source of hope, and
that was contraband. Some thirty miles from the mouth of the
Weser lies the island of Heligoland, a thin strip of grassy down
a little over two miles in circumference, rising out of the German
Ocean. Politically attached to the Kingdom of Denmark, it
was inhabited by a population of pilots and fishermen whose
prosperity had been injured, and whose sustenance even had
been endangered, by the maritime war. On September 5, 1807,
after England had broken with the Danes, the Majestic, with

1 A Journal of the Defence of Hamburg, 284-5 ; Bourrienne, vii. 179,
247-8, 292, 327 ; viii. 15, 56, 64. As a subsequent decree forbade
the sale of the repurchased goods in Germany, they rotted away in their
warehouses.

2 Corr. xii. 67, no. 13,217.

3 Overbeck to Champagny, Feb. 20, 1809 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr.
Pol. : Hamburg, 120.

4 Quelques reflexions sur la position actuelle des villes anseatiques, ibid.

THE HANSEATIC TOWNS 339

Admiral Russell in command, sailed into the tiny harbour,
landed a party of marines, and hoisted the Union Jack. The
Frisian fishermen — there were 400 houses on the island — stared
and submitted, little divining the curious revolution which was
to be effected in this solitary station of birds. A miscellaneous
crowd of merchants, clerks, and smugglers, rapidly poured into
the island of sea-gulls, and the applications for passports became
so numerous that, in May 1808, Canning was obliged to restrict
their issue. The English merchants on the island, who formed
a Chamber of Commerce, reported that from August 9 to
November 20, 1808, upwards of 120 vessels fully laden had
discharged their wares on the island, and that the annual value
of goods transhipped and imported would amount to 8,000,000
pounds sterling. Such was the influx, that what with kegs, cases,
and human beings, there was hardly place to stand, and by May
1810 all the building-room in the lower town was exhausted.
Though the food consisted of hung meat and stewed prunes,
though the prices were exorbitant and the huts stifling, there
was a fine quality of excitement in the life. When the French
government prohibited refined sugar, the traders of Heligoland
deluged the continent with the raw article. WTien the raw
article was forbidden, they shipped rivers of eau sucree. When
the douanier refused eau sucree^ they put their hands into their
pockets and coolly bribed him. Coffee passed as horse-beans,
sugar as starch, the aliases of pepper were legion. Along the
whole North German coast the smugglers of Heligoland found
an accomplice population. Bourrienne reckons that in Hamburg
alone the number of smugglers amounted to 6,000. The citizens
would walk across the Danish border to Altona, and return with
coffee, indigo, and sugar concealed about their persons. Mock
funerals would be organized in which consignments of colonial
goods played the role of corpse. Not a trick was left untried.
By 1809 the blockade had practically broken down. The Heligo-
land traders reported that between June 12 and 30 in that year,
sixty-six loaded vessels and seventy boats, charged with British
merchandise to the value of several hundred thousand pounds,
had safely landed their cargoes on the mainland. Indeed, the real
obstacle to active intercourse with the continent did not come from
the French side, but from the English Orders in Council. The

z2

340 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

French douanier could, unlike the Dane, always be corrupted,
but a more plenteous supply of British licences was needed to
satisfy the vigorous appetite of the merchants of Heligoland l.

Immediately after the battle of Wagram, Napoleon turned
his mind to the question of the Hanseatic towns. Their con-
duct had been irreproachable during the disturbances created
by the exploit of Schill, but their political situation had not
' issued from the provisional stage.' On September 26, 1809,
he wrote from Vienna to Champagny to say that he had
determined after reflection 'to leave these towns imperial
towns.' It would be equally prejudicial to their interests to
unite them to the Kingdom of Holland or the Kingdom of
Westphalia. * I shall be much more the master of these towns
when I have them under my immediate authority.' Accordingly
fteinhard, the French minister at Cassel, was to go to Hamburg
to concert with Bourrienne the project of a constitution. The
towns were to be under the French Protectorate ; they were to
have a minister at Paris ; they were to maintain an armed
force, the superior grades of which were to be filled by the
Emperor of the French. 'In fine,' wrote Napoleon, 'I desire
to have the authority, whether it be over the police and
direction of these towns or in any other manner which may be
judged suitable. I already have the posts2. I desire also
a homage of sovereignty, such, for instance, as the nomination
of the burgomaster on a triple list formed by the States, or
something else of the same nature. ... If a little increase in
territory is indispensable to these towns, I will not refuse to
grant it. They must also furnish a contingent to the Con^
federation. It is necessary that soon after the peace the whole

1 Colonial Office Papers, Heligoland, 1, 2, 3 ; Foreign Office Papers,
Heligoland, 1 ; The Year of Liberation ; A Journal of the Defence of Hamburgh
against the French Army under Marshal Davout in 1813 ; An Account of the
interesting Island of Heligoland, London, 1811 ; Bourrienne, Memoires, vii.
193-4 ; Bulletin d' 'Oldenbourg , March 30, 1811 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr,
Pol. : Allemagne, 743.

a In 1806 the Post Office was transferred from the Count of Thurn and
Taxis to the officials of the Grand-Duchy of Berg. Mr. Nicholas, the
British consul at Altona, made a secret arrangement with these officials
for the forwarding of English letters. Norway, History of the Post Office
Packet Service , 162.

THE HANSEATIC TOWNS 341

of Germany should be organized, and that the provisional
regime should cease. It seems to me that this is the affair
which demands most preparation. As Protector I wish also
to have the right of giving exequatur to foreign consuls, so as
to be able to get rid of them if necessary. I wish also to be
able to send away from the towns foreigners who shall be sus-
pected of plotting things contrary to my interests V

The detailed instructions were prepared by Champagny in
Paris. Everything was to be managed with the greatest
possible dissimulation. The minister of Cassel must spend
a fortnight in Hamburg, talk with the leading citizens*
and suggest certain views informally as if they proceeded
from himself. Would it not be well that the towns should
enter into the Rhenish Confederation, that they should style
themselves imperial towns, take the arms of the French
Empire, and concede to their Protector a 'regular legal and
tutelary influence ' over foreign relations, the press, and foreign
intrigues ? Meanwhile Reinhard and Bourrienne were secretly
to reduce the three municipal constitutions into ' a code which
His Majesty can sanction V

The inhabitants of the three cities were too much concerned
with their own misfortunes to embrace with alertness the
prospect which was opened out to them. Reinhard was forced
to admire ' the cosmopolitan and patriotic spirit ' of Hamburg,
which constantly 'assimilated heterogeneous elements while
preserving ancient institutions, and knew how to follow the
progress of modern civilization, and to animate with the love
of country men who appear to be animated by nothing better
than the love of money.'' Nowhere save in England was so
much important public work done for nothing, and it may
account for the high feeling of municipal patriotism in Ham-
burg that it was one of the few German cities uncontaminated
by aristocratic privilege 3. Reinhard did full justice to these
considerations. He ordered the constitutions of the three

1 Corr. xix. 517-8, no. 15,862.

2 Instructions to Reinhard and Bourrienne, Affaires itrangeres, Corr.
Pol. : Hamburg, 120.

3 This is forcibly stated in the Histoire de la ville de Hambourg, de sa
religion, de son gouvernement et de son commerce (Paris, 1809), ii. 548.

342 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

cities to be reduced into a code, but recommended that the
changes should be as few as possible. At the same time he
drafted a federal constitution which should prescribe the
relations of the towns to one another, and also the relations
which they were to bear towards the Protector. Further, in
the joint memoir upon the situation which was sent in to the
French government by Reinhard and Bourrienne, full expression
was given to the feelings and desires of the Hanseatic burghers.
A moving picture was drawn of the common misery. The
public debt of Hamburg had increased from 20,000,000 francs to
50,000,000 ; the expenditure of Lubeck from 50,000 marks to
more than 1,000,000 ; the capitation-tax was raised twenty-five
times a year to meet the demands of the military occupation ;
morality was undermined by the customs, ' a pest the ravages
of which will be felt in future generations ' ; the sugar refinery
of Hamburg, the only important branch of industry which could
establish itself in that city, was fast disappearing. The burghers
wished to retain the flag and the arms of their respective cities,
and the common title Hanseatic. The French control over
their commerce and external relations was already so complete
that it was hardly worth while to struggle against the substan-
tive claims of the French Emperor \

Napoleon read the memoir of Reinhard and Bourrienne, and
ordered a treaty to be made with the Hanseatic deputies upon
the lines suggested by those envoys. The ' villes unies ' were to
enter as a single State into the Confederation of the Rhine, and
to furnish six guns and %64*6 men to the Grand Army.
Champagny submitted a draft according to which the ideas of
the burghers were to be reconciled with those of the Emperor.
The towns were to be styled imperial and Hanseatic; they
were to adopt the flag and arms of the French Empire without
relinquishing their own civic ensigns. They were to engage
to execute all measures required in the name of the Emperor
relative to the continental system, the press, and foreigners.
Their commercial conventions and constitutions were to be
codified ; the French law, the French monetary system, were to
be introduced, and the internal affairs of the ' villes unies ' were
to be settled by an annual congress of twelve senators, four
1 Affaires etrangeres, Govt. Pol. : Hamburg, 120-1.

THE HANSEATIC TOWNS 343

from each town, who were to sit for fifteen days at most in each
of the three towns in turn. The chiefs of the contingent were
to be named by the French Emperor 1.

All this elaborate constitution-making came to nothing.
Another year elapsed of military rule and nominal indepen-
dence, of sharpened commercial edicts and systematic smuggling,
of growing impoverishment on the one hand and undiminished
exigence on the other.

It was in this year that Marshal Davout, that stern but
upright man of discipline, first laid his heavy hand on Northern
Germany as commander of the thirty-second military division.
He was one of those men who, like Champagny the Foreign
Minister, live to develop and execute the ideas of a master.
He, too, was a fervent believer in the continental blockade, blind
to economic and reckless of spiritual forces, standing out for all
time as the honest fanatic of Napoleonic statesmanship in its
decadence. Finding the French name hated throughout Nor!h
Germany, a population ragged, half-desperate, openly disaffected,
trade ruined, agriculture ruined, a general spirit of ill-ease
ominous of impending calamity, he stiffened his bull-dog neck
and military back, and determined to break the restive beast.
A valiant man of war, entirely incorruptible, devoted as a
favourite hound, a good strict ruler of the camp, utterly intolerant
of pillage, he has earned his place among the great soldiers
in the Arch of Triumph. But he was a bad statesman and
a worse counsellor, and from his ceaseless and devouring sus-
picions Napoleon could only learn how to misread the political
signals 2.

Yet, further east in the city of Danzig, there was a man
who gave brave and wise counsel, if Davout and his master
would listen. Of all the French generals of this time, there
was no one so fearless and honest as the Alsatian Rapp.

1 Corr. xx. 87, no. 16,085 ; Champagny to Napoleon, Jan. 13, 1810 ;
Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Hamburg, 121. The drafts of Bourrienne
and Reinhard may be found in Archives Nationales, A. F. iv. 1706 b.

2 Davout' s correspondence, containing many interesting enclosures,
is in A. F. iv. 1654-7. Many of the Marshal's letters have been printed
by de Mazade ; cf. also Vigier, Vie de Davout. The ungenerous remarks
made by Napoleon at St. Helena (Gourgaud, July 14, 1817) should be
discounted.

344 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Cherishing no illusions, Rapp was brave and loyal enough to
speak unpleasant truths. When the French imposed an export
duty of sixty francs on the ton, Rapp wrote to the Duke of
Feltre as follows : 6 These measures are absolutely against the
interests of the Emperor. One has only to take the map to be
convinced at once. Danzig is killed, and Konigsberg, Elbing,
and Memel will enrich themselves with its remains V While
Davout was urging stricter press censure and domiciliary visits,
Rapp was forwarding through him to the government in Paris
a diagnosis of the situation in Danzig, so searching, so lumin-
ous, so damning to the political wisdom of the commercial
decrees, that an intelligent and unbiased ruler must have recon-
sidered the whole situation. Here was a clear case of a city
absolutely ruined by the cessation of commerce. This cessation
of commerce was due to four causes, each of which was the
direct result of the action of the French government — a heavy
export duty upon grain and wood, a decree that no Danzig
trade should be carried by other than Danzig bottoms, a decree
that all return cargoes must come from France, and an annual
charge of 800,000 francs for the maintenance of a French
garrison. The whole series of transactions was shown to be
absurd, of no profit to France, and of infinite harm to Danzig 2.
Yet in April a fresh burden of over 6,000,000 francs was laid
upon the city. 'Know, Monsieur le Marechal,"' wrote Rapp,
* that I have never passed for an alarmist, but I cannot but be
disquieted when I see that no attention has ever been paid to
the reports which I have sent in3."'

Neither Davout nor Napoleon gave heed. In the distance
there loomed the possibility of a Russian war, pointing, they
thought, to a stricter enforcement of the continental blockade,
and a more rigorous control of Germany — the ante-room to the
steppes. In December 1810 Holland was annexed, and then
the Hanseatic towns, the Duchy of Oldenburg, and other
fragments of Germany between the Baltic and the Dutch
border. To a deputation of the burghers collected in Paris, the

1 Rapp to Feltre, Aug. 24, 1810 ; A. F. iv. 1653.

2 Considerations sur Vetat actuel de Danzig, written by Chef de Bataillon
Goll and forwarded by Davout, Jan. 29, 1811 ; A. F. iv. 1654.

3 Rapp to Davout, April 4, 1811 ; A. F. iv. 1654.

THE HANSEATIC TOWNS 345

Emperor explained his ostensible motives. * Your union to the
Empire,' he said, ' is a necessary consequence of the British laws
of 1806 and 1807, and not the effect of an ambitious calcula-
tion. You will find in my civil laws a protection which in your
maritime position you can no longer find in political laws.
Maritime commerce, which has made your prosperity, can now
only recover with the help of my maritime power. We must
reconquer at the same time the law of nations, the liberty
of the seas, and general peace. When I shall have more than
a hundred vessels of the line, I will vanquish England in
a few campaigns. The sailors of your coasts and the materials
which arrive in the mouths of your rivers are necessary to me.
France in its ancient limits could not construct a navy in time
of war. While its coasts were blocked, it was reduced to receive
the law. To-day, with the increase which my Empire has
received in the last six years, I can construct, equip, and arm
twenty-five vessels of the line a year V

It was hardly of less importance that the new acquisitions
would facilitate canal communication between the Rhine and
the Baltic. In four or five years it was hoped that a new canal
might join the Elbe to the Weser and the Weser to the Ems,
while the canal already existing between Hamburg and Liibeck
might be repaired and widened 2.

An intermediate commission, consisting of three members, the
Count de Chaban, Marshal Davout, and M. Faure, was appointed
to introduce the French system, and sat from February 9 to
December 31, 1811. The Hanseatic senates were abolished, and
a uniform provisional municipal system upon French lines was
substituted for them. The territory was divided into three depart-
ments : Ems Superieur, Bouches de Weser, Bouches de TElbe, each
of which was subdivided in the French manner into arrondisse-
merits, cantons, and communes. In February and March the
commission organized the administration of justice. An official
translation of the French codes was commanded. An imperial

1 Corr. xxi. 485, no. 17,482.

2 Corr. xxi. 310, no. 17,197 ; xxii. 15, no. 17,553. Champagny told
the Consul-General at Hamburg that the Rhenish-Baltic canal was the
principal object of the annexation. Champagny to Leroy, Dec. 14, 1810 ;
Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. : Hamburg, 121.

346

NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

court was established at Hamburg, consisting of four chambers,
two civil, one criminal, and one for the decision of points of
constitutional law. Justices of the peace were appointed in
each canton, and there was a court of first instance in each
arrondissement. German was to be employed concurrently
with French in the courts and in all public and private acts.
Acts drawn up in French and requiring registration were to be
accompanied by a German translation. A strict decree was
issued to punish offences and thefts committed in the imperial
forests. The number of Hamburg newspapers was reduced
from fifteen to six, and the usual official bulletin in French
and German was commanded. The imperial lottery was now
so important an ingredient in French rule, that all competing
institutions were prohibited. A special commissioner was sent
into each of the departments for the purpose of superintending
the naval conscription, and the imperial decree of March 24,
1810, establishing practical schools of marine, was made applicable
to these newly incorporated provinces of the Empire 1,

While the agents of the free towns accredited to foreign
Courts were naturally recalled, the salaries of the Hanseatic
functionaries were reduced to the French level. Commissioners
were sent into each department to collect statistics and personal
information, and conferences were held with the former members
of Hanseatic senates upon points as to which the intermediate
commission desired information.

The French were, on the whole, satisfied with the public
temper, for while it was admitted that the three towns
regretted their independence, not a day passed without some
member of the Hanseatic senates coming to solicit a post in
the government 2. In the country districts there was said to
be some show of enthusiasm to greet the new prefects :\ The
unfortunate inhabitants had suffered so much during the last

1 Collection des proces-verbaux de la Commission du Gouvemement etabli a
Hambourg du 9fevr. au 31 dec. 1811 ; A. F. iv. 1706 c.

2 Chaban to Montalivet, Jan. 21, 1811 ; Fie 50.

3 Rapport sur le voyage de M. Keversberg, prefet de VEms Superieur, a
travers son departement, Fie 56. e M. le Prefet na vu sur sa route que
Ceffusion la plus franche des sentiments oV admiration et d'amour que ces
peuples ont voue a leur nouveau souverain.'

THE HANSEATIC TOWNS 347

few years, that any political change might seem to portend an
alleviation in their lot, and the union with France was naturally
represented by French authorities as the most unmingled blessing
which Providence could confer upon man K

It was one of the established maxims of the imperial govern-
ment to ascertain, though not necessarily to execute, the wishes
of its new subjects. A deputation from the three Hanseatic
departments was accordingly summoned to Paris to advise the
Minister of the Interior upon the needs of those localities, and
twenty-eight sittings were held (May 16 — July 25, 1812) under
the presidency of that official. The deputation recommended
a reduction in the scale of the land-tax, on the ground that the
population was poor, and the soil for the most part light and
sandy. They petitioned for the abolition of the customs line
which separated them from the French Empire ; for a higher
scale of pensions and salaries, owing to the dearness of provisions
and the necessity under which all officials lay of knowing both
languages ; and they requested that all judicial posts should be
given to natives of the three departments. A commission was
recommended for the purpose of reclaiming marsh land, and
measures were suggested for the better organization of charity
and for prison administration. It was represented that the
greater part of the inhabitants of these provinces could read
and write, that reading habits were generally diffused, and that
the schools were excellent ; but since there was no provincial
university, it was suggested that one might eventually be
developed out of the Academy of Bremen.

The deputation proceeded to point out that, by the annexa-
tion of Holland and the Hanseatic departments, France was
becoming a great Protestant power2. They suggested that
a Protestant, if possible a Protestant Councillor of State, might
be appointed to assist the Minister of Cults in all matters
pertaining to his religion, and that a central consistory might
be formed under his presidency. The French government was
urged to preserve the existing Church tithes and endowments,

1 Cf. Davout's proclamation, A. F. iv. 1706 c.

2 The religious census in the Hanseatic departments was : Lutherans,
889,730 ; Catholics, 193,598 ; Calvinists, 51,302 ; Portuguese Jews, 182 ;
Memnonites and Anabaptists, 162 ; Quakers, 20.

348 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

to create three Lutheran consistories at Hamburg, Bremen, and
Osnabriick respectively, to permit Lutheran dogma to be
taught in schools, and to establish a chair of German Cal-
vinistic Dogma for the instruction of intending ministers, who
would otherwise continue to be compelled to obtain their
theological training in Geneva.

Mingled with these positive recommendations there were
many grievances. It was pointed out that the exportation
of cattle, one of the greatest resources of the inhabitants of
Oldenburg, had been forbidden since the union, that the wine-
trade of Hamburg and Bremen suffered from ' a thousand small
vexations,' that the contract under which part of the conscribed
sailor's pay was to be sent to his family had been inadequately
fulfilled, and that merchants and travellers suffered many odious
annoyances at the hands of the French customs officers on the
frontier1.

To Marshal Davout nothing could be more revolting than
the thought that plaintiff Germans should be permitted to
ventilate their opinions in the French capital. ' The residence
of the deputies in Paris,"' he wrote, 'is very harmful to the
service of your Majesty. Their return will dissipate the
chimerical hopes which these people try to foster for their
relations V There was, however, no fear that the government
of the later Empire, now embarked upon the Russian war,
would show undue leniency to its new subjects. The full
unmitigated weight of the French fiscal system, with its heavy
property tax, its door and window tax, its patent tax, its
personal and movable tax, its tax upon registration, and
its droits reunis or duties upon wine and brandy, tobacco and
salt, was laid remorselessly upon this exhausted and penurious
province. The heavy import-duties into France and Holland
raised the price of linen by 20 per cent., and completely
closed the Dutch market against it, and though the customs
line between France and Holland was removed on August 23,
1812, the line existing between Holland and the Hanseatic
departments was still maintained. In other words, the only

1 Compte-rendu des operations de la Commission des Deputes au Corps
Legislatif des departements anseatiques, Fie 57-60.

2 Davout to Napoleon, April 20, 1811 ; A. F. iv. 1706 c.

THE HANSEATIC TOWNS 349

possible material compensation which could have been easily
offered to the ' new Frenchman ' for added fiscal burdens and
vanished political independence, that is to say, free access to
the French and Dutch markets, was by an almost inconceivable
spirit of jealousy denied to them.

Spiritual consolations were sketched in outline, but obliterated
by the rude hand of war. All kinds of reports were invited
and composed upon the state of the sciences and the arts, of the
theatre and of medicine in the new departments of France.
Two eminent men, Cuvier and Noel, were sent to reconnoitre
the educational institutions of the country, which France was
to induct into the full blaze of her shining culture. The
peasants were here, as elsewhere, declared free from the more
degrading services, and the monasteries and nunneries — homes
of ease and ignorance — received a short shrift. It would be
possible, indeed, to form a selection of administrative documents
in which one would read of nothing but the solicitude of the
imperial government for the illumination and development of
a backward province.

But an historical portrait painted from such material would
have been disowned by every German inhabitant. For them
the French rule meant still what it had meant from the
beginning — an army of spies and custom-house officers, of
insolent soldiers and corrupt officials, of extortion, repression,
and despotism.

CHAPTER XVI

THE RHINE DEPARTMENTS

(Halt fest am Reich, du kolnischer Bauer, mag es fallen suss oder
sauer.' — Oli> Proverb.

At the outbreak of the great war in 1792 there was a long strip
of territory upon the left bank of the Rhine, extending from
Cleves to Deuxponts and Saarbriick, which formed part of the
German Empire, and was inhabited by a German-speaking people.
Few districts of equal area, even in Germany, were so various in their
political, social, and economic characteristics. Nine bishoprics or
archbishoprics, seven abbeys, two religious military orders, seventy-
six princes or counts, four imperial towns, and a vast number of
imperial knights exercised sovereign authority in this westernmost
rim of Germany, and succeeded in giving a distinctive colour to
their several dominions. Nor were political subdivisions the sole
cause or type of difference. There was great variety of climate
and soil, of occupation and temperament. The contrast was
great between the pleasure-loving, wine-growing Franconian of
the south, of Worms and Speier, of Kreuznach and Zweibriicken,
and the thrifty, enduring Low German who drove his plough on
the Hundsruck, or gathered his sparse harvest of hay on the cold
heights of the Eiffel. Great, too, was the contrast between the
population of the Rhine valley, between Bingen and Bonn, and
the dwellers in the wide plains of the lower river. Here a narrow
strip of sunny vineyard bred a joyous, careless, excitable tempera-
ment. Peasants lived from hand to mouth, hoping for a good
vintage ; and when the fine year came and the vats were full,
they would drink and frolic with their casual fortune. The poor
swarmed into the cities, and lived on the alms so bountifully
distributed by their priestly rulers, for Mainz, Coblentz, and
Bonn shone in the favour of a princely Court *. But as soon
as the northern plain begins, life becomes hard and sober, even
solemn. The men are more steady and trustworthy ; they sow

1 Thayer's Beethoven, i. 88.

THE RHINE DEPARTMENTS 351

corn and drive oxen, and in their substantial farmsteads gather
plenty.

A distinctive feature of the Rhineland was the political pre-
ponderance of the ecclesiastical principalities. If we except the
King of Prussia, who owned Cleves, the Elector-Palatine, and
the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, far the most important sove-
reigns in this region were the ecclesiastical Electors of Cologne,
Mainz, and Treves. The government of these princes was
neither barbarous nor pious, neither oppressive nor unpopular.
Some of them even showed a zeal for the welfare of their sub-
jects, and improved the schools or diminished the holidays in
their dominions. The burden of military service was small, the
taxes were comparatively light, and an easy-going population
were well content to live under the crosier. But of all forms of
temporal government there is none so enervating as the govern-
ment of priests. The Courts of Cologne, Mainz, and Treves
were remarkable for petty intrigue and idle splendour, and a
total absence of any serious political interests. Society was
divided into rigid castes, each consumed with the shabby am-
bition of keeping itself unsullied by contact with the caste below
it. The old nobility despised the new nobility, and the new
nobility despised the burghers. There was a Prussian party
and an Austrian party, there were Papalists and anti-Papalists,
there were the personal adherents of the archiepiscopal mistress
and there was the legion of her foes, there were the obscurantists
who regretted the Middle Ages, and there were the fine gentle-
men and ladies who fingered their Voltaire and Helvetius. But
however numerous the sections into which Rhenish society was
split, one feature was common to the whole mass — a strange de-
tachment from all the deeper elements of German life. For these
cathedral cities and these archiepiscopal Courts, each so envious of
the splendour of Versailles, so careless of the beauties of their own
splendid monuments of Gothic, the new literature of Germany
the works of Kant and Lessing, of Goethe and Schiller, might
almost as well not have been written. The idea of the intellec-
tual achievements, of the intellectual possibilities of Germany,
was entirely foreign to the students of the Catholic universities
of Mainz or Cologne. A hard, narrow scholasticism, the husks
of a once living but long extinct ardour of life and thought,

352 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

paralysed the intellect and narrowed the sympathies. The super-
stitions of Romanism survived without its poetry, and the city
of Albertus Magnus had forgotten to think.

In the evening of October 5, 1792, a man was seen shyly
wearing the tricolour in the streets of Mainz. It was in vain that
the Elector, Carl Joseph von Erthal, had prohibited all reference
to Paris news, attempting to delete the Revolution as a censor
might draw his pen through an obnoxious passage in a news-
paper. The new creed spread eastwards, and found its adherents
in the Rhenish cities. Some were caught by the new gospel of
equality, others were fascinated by the notion of a Cisrhenane
republic ; to others the insolence and futility of the French emi-
grant nobility commended the furies of democracy. The old
governments made an ignominious flight before the advancing
French armies, packing up their gold and jewels and abandoning
the land to their foes. How could men feel any respect or
allegiance for rulers of so base a metal ? And when Prussian
and Austrian armies restored those rulers for a brief period, it
was clear that adversity had taught them no lesson which was worth
the learning. The old Church coach lumbered along in the old
ruts, until in 1794 there was a second dispersion of ecclesiastical
gentlemen at the point of the French bayonet. Then for the
next twenty years the tricolour waved over the cities of the
Rhine.

If in the first flush of enthusiasm some Germans of literary
temperament had welcomed the liberating legions of France,
this illusion was soon dissipated. The French government was
detestable, and the country was the theatre of continuous
war. For Hve years formidable armies inundated these pro-
vinces ; towns and villages were pillaged, devastated, or burnt ;
cottages were abandoned, fields remained untilled, industry
and commerce perished. Exorbitant contributions amounting
to 150,000,000 francs were raised. ' In the time of terror,'
say two petitioners (April 2, 1800) to the First Consul, ' the
principle was actually laid down that France ought to surround
herself with deserts, and " commissioners of evacuation " were
sent for this purpose. We were then inundated with a horde
of immoral men who came only with the intention of spoil. . . .
In our courts sit men who are as completely ignorant of the

THE RHINE DEPARTMENTS 353

language and laws of the country, as they are ignorant of
the rights of the republic, and who defile the sublime ministry
with which they are invested. The majority of administrative
posts, especially in finance, are occupied by stupid and immoral
men, and every resistance to these scandals involves an accusa-
tion of terrorism.' Another highly qualified observer paints
an equally depressing picture of the situation of the Rhenish
provinces at the time of the coup d'etat of Brumaire. ' Every-
body,' he says, 'hides his wealth in order to escape the requisitions
of the tax-collector. Most of the municipal and communal
authorities imitate the soldiers in demanding unauthorized re-
quisitions, and live by plunder, and the public debt amounts to
more than 90,000,000 francs.' The report proceeds to describe
how almost all the hospitals and houses of refuge were so indebted
or pillaged that they could offer no shelter to the poor ; how there
were few or no good roads ; how all the bridges were crumbling
away, and the dykes were • ready to cede to the force of im-
petuous torrents.' It depicts the widespread destruction of the
castles and country houses which formed the ornament of the
country, and the devastation of entire communes, by fire or by
' commissions of evacuation.' The same authority says that the
priests were everywhere against the French, that the workshops
were idle, and the forests ruined by devastation or neglect 1.

No war can be carried on without havoc, and a large part
of these evils may be reckoned among the inevitable con-
sequences of a state of war. But much was also due to the
vacillation, the immorality, and the political incompetence of
the French government and their agents. The scheme of
administration went through several phases. First there was
a Central Administration at Aix-la-Chapelle (November 14,
1792), then another Central Administration was established
at Treves (January 27, 1795), and then the two were united
in the single administration of Aix (March 10, 1795). A year
later another plan was tried, and two General Directions

1 Situation de I' administration civile dans les quatre nouveauoc departements
sur la rive gauche du Rhin a Vepoque du premier Brumaire, an S, par le
citoyen Shee, Fie 43. A similar impression may be gathered from the
correspondence of the British minister at Cassel (F. 0. Germany, 20),
and from Metternich's Memoires, i. 258.

fisher a a

354 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

(capitals Aix-la-Chapelle and Coblentz) were established, but
they too were short-lived. On February 4, 1797, the Directorate
charged Hoche, general-in-chief of the army of Sambre-et-Meuse,
to reorganize the conquered country, and an Intermediate
Commission composed of five members was established by that
general at Bonn, which lived on for a few months, during which
time it did good work. Requisitions and contributions of
war were forbidden ; all the French officials were deprived
of office, and their acts submitted to scrutiny; an order was
issued that the functionaries of the deposed governments
should resume their official work. But Hoche died, and
Augereau, his successor, imported more of the revolutionary
ardour into the government. He protected the patriotic or
revolutionary clubs, required the officials of the old regime to
swear an oath of hatred to monarchy and anarchy, and pushed
forward the sale and division of Church lands. But at last
these miserable provinces passed finally out of military control.
On November 4, 1797, an Alsatian, by name Rudler, was made
government Commissioner for all the land between the Rhine
and Moselle. Rudler was, it appears, an honest man, though
his enemies accused him of nepotism. He kept out of factions,
refused to listen to the clamours of the ' patriots ' of Mainz,
and his first choice of public functionaries was tolerably good.
But so great was the fear of reaction among the party which
had saluted the French occupation that not a single rich pro-
prietor or former magistrate was selected to fill any office.

It is, however, to Rudler that the Rhenish districts owe their
organization as French provinces. He divided them into four
departments (1, Roer, capital Aix-la-Chapelle; 2, Rhin-et-
Moselle, capital Coblentz ; 3, Mont-Tonnerre, capital Mainz ;
4, Sarre, capital Treves), and introduced the laws and institu-
tions of revolutionary France, abolishing the corvee and
tithes, seigneurial justice and entails, and in fine all the
exemptions and privileges of the nobility, as well as publishing
laws to regulate civil and criminal procedure, successions, the
notariat, and the civil state1. The four departments were

1 For Rudler's work, cf. Fie 42 : Recueil des reglemens et arretes emanes
du Commissaire du Gouvernement dans les quatre nouveaux departements de
la rive gauche du Rhin, Strasbourg, an vii-viii.

THE RHINE DEPARTMENTS 355

introduced to the benefits of the French legal system, public
procedure, the jury, and the mild and humane Criminal Code
of 1795, but the use of the French tongue in the law courts
was enjoined, and this, taken in connection with the nefarious
character of the public prosecutor Keil, who is described to
us in a highly coloured passage as being ' more ambitious than
Robespierre, and more ferocious than Fouquier-Tinville,' must
have raised doubts as to the excellence of the new civilization \
Further, a stable administration was rendered impossible by
the jealousies of various French factions which were contending
for power in the new departments, and by the weakness of the
Directorate in Paris. The true course would have been to
select a strong and honest governor, free from patriotic cant, and
uncontaminated by revolutionary excesses, and then to support
him through thick and thin. But the home government had
neither the courage, nor the knowledge, nor the strength to
pursue such a policy. Hardly was a governor appointed, but
he incurred unpopularity by dismissing one official or by
appointing another, and was in consequence recalled. The
capable Rudler made way for the cipher Marquis. The cipher
Marquis was succeeded by the terrorist Lakanal, whose detestable
government aroused a universal outcry. After Lakanal came
Dubois-Dubais, and after Dubois-Dubais, General Shee, an honest
man with some local knowledge but incapacitated alike by
old age and bad health. Five governors in two years would
have been too large an allowance under any circumstances : in
a new unorganized province racked with war and every form
of physical distress, it meant sheer chaos. There were indeed
fifteen octavo volumes of regulations, decrees, and instructions
of the General Commissioner, to which an apologist might point
as a sign that whatever might have been the vices of the French
revolutionary government, idleness was not among them. But
though the French system was introduced on paper, there was
little to commend it to the German mind, so long as the agents
of the government were corrupt, extortionate, and tyrannical 2.

1 Tableau des quatre nouveaux departements depuis leur organisation jusqu' a
ce jour, presente le 21 Vend, au citoyen Jollivet, Fie 43.

2 It may interest the legal student to note that among the laws

published by the revolutionary government in the four departments

a a 2

356 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

No justification can be pleaded by the French on the score
of opposition in the provinces. The Rhinelanders bent their
necks to the yoke with the passive apathy of tired cattle.
There were no conspiracies, there was no feeling for the
old governments ; the taxes were paid to an Augereau or
a Lakanal with the same docility as they had been paid
to the Elector of Mainz or the Duke of Deux-Ponts. Yet,
if we except the small knot of professional agitators in the
towns, the inhabitants were ground between the lower and
the upper millstone. Some of them hated the old order of
things : all of them were driven to desperation by the new.
Their leaders had preached a millennium, and they were ex-
periencing a hell. Such republican enthusiasm as formerly
existed had utterly died away under the pressure of French
customs, French passports, French taxes, and French prisons.
The * fetes decadaires ' had resolved themselves into ' some
speeches recited precipitately in a low voice,'' before a handful
of officials. ' There is hardly a commune,' so goes a report, ' in
which one can find some privileged souls animated by the spark of
the sacred fire,'' and the difficulty of discovering men to replenish
the official hierarchy steadily increased. 'A great number of
cantons,' wrote Shee, April 11, 1800, 'are not only without
a commissioner, but still devoid of any administrative action.
Aix-la-Chapelle and Coblentz have not even a municipality,
Treves and Mainz have very bad ones, and as in several other
communes there is no one willing to discharge a public office,
our enemies rejoice at the general relaxation of government V
The only remedy which seemed possible under the circumstances
was thorough incorporation with France. The old governments
could not be recalled, the present system of ruling the country
like a pashalik was intolerable, and as there was no administra-
tive class sufficiently skilled, upright, and powerful to govern
a Cisrhenane republic, independence was out of the question.
If it were once recognized that these departments were French,
there was some hope that they might be treated with greater
consideration, that the officials would be more impartial, and

there were many which belonged to the ancient Monarchy, as the Ordon-
nance sur le fait de la Justice of 1539, and the great Ordonnance Civile
of 1667. 1 F*e 43.

THE RHINE DEPARTMENTS 357

that local hates would have a smaller influence on public affairs.
The prospect was not one which could be viewed altogether
with a sanguine heart, with the old enthusiasm of '92, but it
was a way out of a difficulty, and while the coup aVetat of
Brumaire was being prepared, three delegates from the Rhine
provinces were travelling to Paris to plead that this course
might be adopted.

One of these men, J. G. Gorres of Coblentz, though only
twenty-three years of age, was already a striking figure, and
destined to play a distinguished if somewhat ineffectual role in
German politics. His Italian strain, for his mother was of that
race, gave him a vivacity and quickness of temperament which
are rarely found among Teutons of the pure blood. He was
a fine popular orator, a brilliant journalist, and afterwards
a sympathetic, versatile, and ingenious scholar. He had courage,
energy, dash, curiosity, and all the qualities of the spirited
temperament. But he was deficient in judgement and measure,
and an ill-natured critic might discover in his earlier life the
failings of the demagogue, and in his middle age the weakness of
the sciolist. At the beginning of the French Revolution he
had thrown himself vigorously into the democratic current, and
such was his simplicity at the age of twenty that he sent the
Directorate, the most warlike of governments, a project for
a perpetual peace, which breathes the most fervid enthusiasm
for the new Republic. In his journal, Das rothe Blatt, he
caricatured the prince-bishops and confederate kings without
sparing the errors of the French functionaries, and an article
directed against the Landgrave of Hesse, then at peace with
France, led to the suppression of the paper. A Cisrhenane
republic, organized on democratic lines, and protected by
France against the assaults of the expelled despots, seemed to
him in those days the best means of reconciling the spirit of the
age with German patriotism. But with the death of Hoche
and the advent of Rudler he came to modify his aspirations.
It was clear that France now meant to annex the departments,
and that the dream of a Cisrhenane independence was vain.
Gorres argued, as so many have argued both before and since,
that civilization is higher than nationality, and that the true
interests of a people are served by giving them the best in-

358 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

stitutions available, even at the expense of local spirit. By
1799 his conversion to the tricolour had become complete, and
there was no more enthusiastic champion of the French union
than Gorres.

The deputation was received by the First Consul, who assured
them that the inhabitants of the four departments could count
unreservedly upon the justice of the French government, and
that he would never lose sight of their happiness ; and after
the Treaty of Luneville had ratified the cession of the left bank
of the Rhine, a consular proclamation addressed to the Rhine-
land recapitulated the advantages of the French connection in
the following impressive terms 1 : —

' A solemn treaty concluded between the Republic, the chief
of the Empire, and the Germanic Body, and ratified at Paris
£5 Ventose, has definitely united your destiny to that of
France. The interests and rights of the Republic have become
yours ; your interests and your rights have become hers. In
adopting you she has vowed to you, as to all her children, good
will and solicitude ; she calls upon you as she calls upon them
to promise fidelity to her. Let this promise impose upon all
a forgetfulness of the ties from which the treaty has disengaged
you, and a respect for those ties which now attach you to the
Republic. Let it put a term to the vain apprehensions which
prevent some persons from enjoying the advantages of union,
and to the mad hopes which induce some others to disguise or
pervert them.

'These advantages, what reasonable spirit could fail to re-
cognize them ? Odious privileges no longer enchain the industry
of the working classes ; game no longer ravages the fields of
the cultivator, or devours the fruits of his work ; degrading
corvees have ceased for all ; for all has ceased the degradation
of feudal services.

' The tithe is abolished ; contributions of all kinds have been
softened down ; taxation is equally distributed between the lands
of the lord and the ecclesiastic, which were formerly exempt
from charges, and those of the individual who used alone to bear
them. The internal custom-duties which obstructed the transit
from one country to another, or prevented people from going

1 Corr. vii. 198, no. 5,641.

THE RHINE DEPARTMENTS 359

up the rivers, are suppressed ; commerce is free with France —
the most advantageous market of the world — and will no longer
encounter the obstacles which the old frontiers opposed to it.

'An impartial justice and regular administrations are sub-
stituted for the arbitrary authority of the bailiffs. Such are
the advantages which union assures to liberty and property.
It does no less for the security and tranquillity of the country.
Instead of being covered by opposed and constantly conflicting
interests, it will be sheltered by an interest common to 30,000,000
citizens. Instead of being submitted to a multitude of small
governments too feeble to defend, but strong enough to oppress,
it will be protected by a power which will always know how
to make its territory respected. The union of the four depart-
ments to France is for them a pledge of prosperity, and their
promise of fidelity to the Republic will be an expression of
actual affection for her, no less than a recognition of the acts
which have brought about the union.'

A year later van Alpen, a worthy pastor of Stolberg (near
Aix-la-Chapelle), published a history of the Rhineland, which is
curious as illustrating a combination of genuine local patriotism
with enthusiasm for the French Republic. A passage taken
from the introduction to the second volume may serve to illustrate
the attitude of an honest Rhenish antiquary to the government
of the French Revolution and the Consulate 1.

' Wild and stormy advanced the new constitution into view :
threatening and in bloody garment began Anarchy ; with the
most awful devastations did she raise her sceptre and terrible
throne on the laughing meadows and golden hills of the Rhine ;
mild and wise had been the last rulers of the left bank of the
Rhine, the Kings of Prussia, the Electors of the Palatinate, of
Cologne, of Treves, of Mainz. By dint of their great statesman-
ship smiled the morning glow of reason, truth, and virtue ;
humanity and love fought many a fortunate fight, won many
a decisive victory, overthrew many demons of darkness ; by means
of their good administration the lovely Rhine-bank bloomed.
Then came the hour of devastation ; then came the destructive
Angel of Dread; then raged the bloody sword; then most
hideous war swung its blade over the good, tranquil, industrious,
1 We make no attempt to refine the author's phraseology.

360 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

and towards-perfection-ripening inhabitants. But how all that
has altered ! How fled the shadows of death, how vanished the
darkness of night in the morning of the 18th Brumaire ! How
fled the demon of devastation before the rescuer Bonaparte !

'The military government of the left Rhine-bank was soon
brought to an end by the General Commissioners. This altera-
tion was already popular. Unforgettable remain for us the
services of a Shee, a Rudler, a Jollivet, towards the organization
of the four departments. Immortal gratitude the last of these
commissioners, Jean Bon St. Andre, won for himself. His
memory will live on in the wonderful road to Mainz and Cologne,
in the Antonine Church which he gave to the Protestants in
Cologne, and in the St. Anne Church which he gave to the
Protestants in Aix; in his efforts to further tolerance, unity,
industry, trade, arts, knowledge, and well-being.

6 At last a decree of the government orders that with i Vend.
XI, the French constitution shall avail for the four new Rhine
departments, and that Jean Bon St. Andre shall continue his
functions as prefect in the Department of Mont-Tonnerre. So
we are now united, we make a part of the great Republic and of
the most enlightened people of the world, we enjoy all advantages
and the protection of the government, just as much as the
French nation : we are French. Our four new Rhine depart-
ments make the twenty-sixth military division, which will receive
new brilliance from the Legion of Honour and the camp of
Veterans. Senatorships will be established here. Each depart-
ment has its prefect, its arrondissement, its special court ; each
arrondissement its sub-prefect, its court of justice ; each commune
one or more justices of the peace, one or more notaries, its mayor.
All four departments have their court of appeal at Treves ; all
will see one of their number elevated to be a member of the
legislature. Compare our present constitution with that which
preceded it, and you will be content with our position. Trust
in the government, hope for the future V

The intelligent Gorres was not so sanguine. Being in Paris
shortly after Brumaire, he had correctly divined the political
situation, and in a pamphlet addressed to his fellow countrymen

1 Van Alpen, Geschichte des frankischen Rheinufers : was es war und was
es itzt ist, Cologne, 1802.

THE RHINE DEPARTMENTS 361

gave vent to his bitter disappointment. Where he had hoped
for a republic he found a despotism. ' He had received,"' so he
wrote, ' a wound which could not heal. The great images which
had grown with him were broken.'' The only brilliant publicist
of the Rhineland retired from politics to become a professor.
In a short time all public life ceased. The clubs were closed,
the newspapers were censured, and the voice of criticism was
completely stilled. It was the price which the Rhineland had to
pay for union with ' the most enlightened people of the world."'

When on September 22, 1802, the four Rhine departments,
Roer, Rhin-et-Moselle, Sarre, and Mont-Tonnerre, were finally
assimilated to the departments in the interior of France \ the
office of General Commissioner was abolished, and the new
institutions which the Consulate was creating for France were
simultaneously communicated to these provinces. The work of
destruction had already been accomplished, and ten years of
revolutionary turmoil stood between the Rhinelanders and the
days when Worms and Speier were free imperial cities, and
the inhabitants of Bonn and Coblentz studied the caprices
and enjoyed the festivals of their luxurious princes. Nobody
dreamt that the old order could ever return. Those ancient
days seemed already fantastic and distant. There was a longing
for quiet and stable administration, for honest governors, and
steady material development. If France could give these things,
the Rhine provinces were willing to accept her, if not with
enthusiasm, at any rate with indifference. There was, indeed,
no alternative power which could claim their allegiance.

The administration of Napoleon healed the wounds and
smoothed the wrinkles. The reign of violence was over, and
the reign of order began. The concordat restored and regu-
lated the outward machinery of religion. Free public worship
was permitted ; bishoprics were founded in Aix, Mainz, and
Treves, and seminaries provided by the State undertook the
religious instruction of the clergy. The political power and

1 Rhin-et-Moselle contained a population of 203,290 ; Ruhr, one of
516,287 ; Sarre, one of 219,049 ; Mont-Tonnerre, one of 342,316. The
largest towns were Cologne (about 38,000), Aix (about 23,000), and
Mainz (about 21,000). Bonn had about 18,000 and Coblentz 10,000.
Mordteur, an X, no. 352, Supplement.

362 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

territorial influence of the hierarchy were indeed gone, and gone
for ever, but nevertheless the greater part of the Catholic
clergy accepted the change without a murmur. At the first
approach of the French armies in 1792, the rich abbots and
canons had fled with their coffers, leaving their poorer brethren
behind them, men who, having never tasted the sweets of
wealth or power, had little to regret or to forgive. The
Church was now felt to be a democratic institution. There
were no splendid sinecures to attract the nobility, no canonical
stalls jealously reserved for the men of many quarterings ; and
the high places being open to all, the peasant sent one of
his sons to the seminary, where he learnt the Napoleonic
catechism and a few Latin prayers, and was thus trained for
the congenial task of preaching to a rustic congregation the
duty of fidelity to its French master.

Yet it must not be supposed that the Napoleonic regime was
generous towards the clergy. The Catholic Church saw its
monasteries abolished, its bishops put on niggardly salaries, the
control of education transferred to other hands, divorce and
the civil marriage sanctioned by law. The State incomes of
the Lutheran clergy were hardly sufficient to keep the wolf
from the door, even with the addition of the house and garden
provided at the expense of the commune. Yet the Lutheran
pastors were as loyal and as ignorant as their Catholic brethren.
Possessing little of theology and nothing of Greek, for the
luxuries of knowledge were beyond an income of 500 francs, they
gave themselves with zeal to the culture of the grape, and it is
said that the clear vintages of the Rhine and the Moselle owe
something to the well-directed labours of impecunious divines h

The continued existence of religious corporations was in-
consistent with the levelling policy of Napoleon. Yet some
exceptions and alleviations softened the rigour of the decree
of dissolution 2. All establishments whose sole object was
education or the relief of the sick were exempted from the
general sentence of death. Pensions which, small though they
might be, were not smaller than the incomes of the parish
priests, were allotted to the expropriated, and six of the largest
convents, together with four of the largest monasteries, were
1 Eilers, ii. 141 ff. 2 July 2, 1802 ; Daniels, iv. 391.

THE RHINE DEPARTMENTS 363

reserved for the use of those among the nuns and the more
elderly monks who might desire to continue the common life.
While the regular clergy were thus deprived of their legal
status, the autonomy of the seculars was pierced at a thousand
points by the all-pervading energy of the State. The care
of the church fabric was entrusted to a council of notables, of
which the cure and the mayor were ex-officio members, and
any application for public funds came under the scrutiny of
the municipal council and the prefect, of the bishop, and, in
case of disagreement between the two last authorities, of the
Minister of Cults at Paris \

A form of government conceived in the same jealousy of
clericalism was accorded to the churches of the Augsburg
Confession. Five consistorial churches were to form the arron-
dissement of an 'inspection,' and each 'inspection' was to be
composed of the minister, and of an elder or notable from
every church in the arrondissement. The body so constituted
could only assemble with the authorization of the government,
and in the presence of the prefect and sub-prefect, nor could
it enforce its decisions until they had obtained the approval
of the State. The main duty of the general council of inspec-
tion was, however, not to legislate, but to nominate a com-
mittee of three persons, two of whom were to be laymen, to
supervise the churches and ministers in the arrondissement.
A function so slight might, one would have supposed, have
been safely committed to the Lutheran churchmen to discharge,
but Napoleon would tolerate no autonomy, and the names of
the nominees had to be submitted for his approval. Above
the 'inspections' the First Consul created three general con-
sistories, which were to meet respectively at Strasburg, Mainz,
and Cologne. These assemblies again were partially composed
of laymen, and could only meet with government permission,
and in the presence of prefect and sub-prefect. Since their
sessions were limited to six days, and since no topic could be
entertained or discussed without due notice given to the Minister
of Cults, it is probable that the deliberations of the Lutheran
fathers were neither free, animated, nor important 2.

1 Dec. 30, 1809 ; Daniels, v. 431.

2 April 8, 1802 ; Daniels, iv. 292 ff.

364 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

The French Revolution, in itself so didactic, had left public
education in the utmost confusion. Schools, primary and
secondary, had been decreed on a comprehensive scale, but
such schools as were created suffered from penury and neglect.
The law of xi Floreal X (May 1, 1802) laid the burden of
primary and secondary schools upon the communes, except in
so far as they were assisted by voluntary effort, and submitted
both these classes of school to the strict control of prefect and
sub-prefect. At the same time the State undertook the support
of the lycees, which gave instruction in ancient languages, logic,
morals, physics, and mathematics, and of the special schools of
law, medicine, and the like. The schoolboys of the Mainz lycee
long remembered the day when Napoleon himself walked into
the class-room and examined the upper forms in Latin and
mathematics \ For the lycee, like every other detail in the
Napoleonic system, was made to serve the purposes of its
creator. It was modelled upon military principles, and the drill,
the uniform, and the discipline of these stringent institutions
were intended to acclimatize the student to barrack life, and to
produce intelligent and serviceable tools to the hand of a despot.

But more important than the creation of the lycee was the
decree of March 17, 1808, which constituted the University of
France. The educational institutions of the Rhine provinces
were now fitted into a comprehensive system directed from
Paris, and this incidentally served to promote the design of
detaching the four departments from the intellectual influences
of Germany. Such a project had been cherished under the
Directory, openly declared under the Consulate, and was now
steadily pursued under the Empire2. The famous German
Universities were forbidden, as the seed-plots of all that was
imaginative, turbulent, and perilous to the State. An imperial
decree enacted that the text-books in the lycees should be French,
that the teaching should be given in French, and that a third

1 Lerebours, Napoleon et les Mayencais, 8.

2 Moniteur, 1802, no. 211 : ' Les peuples reunis a la France qui parlent
une langue differente, et accoutumes a des institutions etrangeres, ont besoin de
renoncer a d'anciennes habitudes et de se former sur leur sol les moyens neces-
saires pour donner a leurs fits V instruction, les mosurs, les caracteres qui
doivent les confondre avec les Francais,'

THE RHINE DEPARTMENTS 365

of every hour should be devoted to French grammar and litera-
ture. As a knowledge of the French language was an indis-
pensable condition of government employment, the study of
German, though never forbidden, tended to take a subordinate
place, and even disappeared from the curriculum of the lycee of
Bonn. Yet it is questionable whether any sense of resentment
was engendered by this feature in the educational policy of
the Empire. These provinces had kept themselves so curiously
isolated from the main stream of German thought and feeling
that it was no special privation for the Rhinelander to be cut
off from the lectures of Gottingen or Leipzig. Nor was the
campaign against the German language waged in a resolute or
persecuting spirit. Though French was the language of the
government and the laws, the prefect of Mont-Tonnerre ex-
horted the members of the Society of Science and Arts at Mainz
not to neglect ' their original and primitive ' tongue, and spoke
of the %- happy alliance ' which should be made to exist between
the two languages. The importation of German newspapers
and books was purposely rendered difficult by official regulations,
but nevertheless they penetrated into the departments. Though
French made considerable progress, German was never eliminated
from the primary schools, and the number of bilingual Rhine-
landers was sufficient to fill the lower ranks of the official hier-
archy. ' The great instrument, language, is wanting to us,1 said
a French prefect, speaking of the peasants in 1812 ; ' we must
work to make it popular V

It was natural to expect that the popularization of the French
language would be effected through the primary schools, but in
the distribution of public expenditure and public functions
these institutions were abandoned to the communes. Of all the
defects in Napoleon's educational statemanship there was per-
haps none greater than the devolution of the responsibility for
primary education upon a body so ill-prepared and apathetic
as the commune 2. It was idle to expect that the pressure of the
prefect from above could atone for the massive apathy of the

1 Levy-Schneider, La Revolution francaise, March 1902, 235.

2 The principle was inherited from the preceding government ; cf. Loi
qui determine le mode administratif des recettes et depenses departementales }
municipales et communales, Dec. 1, 1798.

366 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

rural and urban population below. In the Rhineland at least,
neither the individual parent nor the collective village cared for
education, and as there was no legal compulsion upon the
parents to send their children to school, the results were deplor-
able 1. An official report in 1814 states that at least one-third
of the communes were devoid of schools, and that three-fifths
of the children between six and fourteen years of age had
escaped any form of State instruction. Even where education
was provided, the quality was indifferent. Though an imperial
decree ordered the formation of training colleges for elementary
teachers, no such college was founded at the public expense in
the four departments. And if the teacher was untrained, the
inspection was incompetent to discover his defects, for it gener-
ally happened that the village Orbilius, chosen by an illiterate
mayor whose nomination was mechanically confirmed by a
distant academical rector, was supervised by a French in-
spector who could not understand a word of the language in
which the lessons were given 2.

The introduction of the French codes was a welcome innova-
tion, for perhaps in no quarter of Europe had there been a
greater confusion in the domain of private law. The numerous
small principalities which had existed in the Rhineland before
the French conquest had their own several laws, customs, and
ordinances, and to these the commissaries of the French govern-
ment had added a large and incoherent mass of decrees and
regulations. The codes thus introduced certainty instead of
uncertainty, unity instead of multiplicity, light instead of dark-
ness. It may be thought that Catholic and ecclesiastically-
minded communities would willingly have been left in the dis-
comforts of legal chaos, rather than endure the civil marriage
and divorce. But it must be remembered that the Revolution
had already impressed its idea of the secular egalitarian State
upon the departments of the Rhine, and that the Civil Code

1 ' Public instruction,' says a writer in 1808, ( is almost totally neglected
in the rural communes.' — Bodmann, Annuaire statistique du departement
de Mont-Tonnerre pour Van 1808.

2 Neigebaur, 117 ff. ; Eilers, ii. 24 ff. ; Heppe, Geschichte des deutschen
Volksschulwesens , ii. 106 ; Treitschke, Deutsche Geschichte, ii. 227, who
points with pride to the ripe fruits of the Prussian principle of compulsory
education.

THE RHINE DEPARTMENTS 367

softened rather than deepened the harsh but necessary outlines
of French secularism.

The ideal of the best French administrators of this period
was that of a soft paternal government which should educate
its subjects in the art and method of attaining material pros-
perity. For all that the Rhine provinces had undergone, for
the forcible dissolution of ancient ties, for the horrors of war
and of the Terror, they were now to receive material compensa-
tions. The abolition of tithes and feudal dues accomplished in
the previous period, the high price of corn, the mobility of
capital, the strict order and discipline which prevailed in the
land, the enthusiasm of the prefects for agrarian development,
and the rigorous and intelligent control of local expenditure
quickened the prosperity of the villages. Whereas under the
old regime two-thirds of the soil in the ecclesiastical principali-
ties belonged either to the Church or to the nobles, now
the land was free and the peasant was given opportunities of
purchase. On November 25, 1802, the French law relating to the
sale of the rural property of the State was published in the Rhine
departments, and from this time forward the sales increased in
number. In the Rhine and Moselle department alone, domains
were sold to the value of four and a half million francs from
May 16, 1803, to December 1, 1806. Nor was it the govern-
ment alone who brought land into the market. Companies of
capitalists bought up the estates of nobles and clergy at auctions
and sold them again in small lots, and a large and thriving
peasant proprietary was thus rapidly formed in the new depart-
ments. Indeed, the subdivision of land was carried so far that
by 1815 a property of fifty acres was considered a large estate1.
There are two notable occasions upon which Napoleon directly
intervened to safeguard the interests of the Rhenish peasantry.
As we have already had abundant occasion to notice, there was
no problem of this time more encompassed with difficulty, than
the attempt to discriminate between the feudal services or dues
which were to be abolished, and the non-feudal services or dues
which were not to be abolished without compensation. The
decrees of the General Commissioners upon this subject had been
confusing and contradictory, being influenced in turn by the
1 Perthes, i. 269 ; Treitschke, Deutsche Geschichte, ii. 273.

368 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

dictates of philanthropy and the interests of the fisc. In the
prevailing ambiguity it was to the advantage of all parties that
the questions at issue should once and for all be clearly deter-
mined. What was the precise state of the existing law ? What
was the kind of proof of non-feudality which the courts should
require ? What dues could be safely described as non- feudal ?
A satisfactory answer to the last of these questions would, of
course, imply minute local knowledge. Accordingly, when Napo-
leon came to Mainz in 1804, finding this among other problems
awaiting his solution, he referred it to a commission composed
partly of the directors of domains, and partly of the best lawyers
of the four departments. The president of this assembly was
Bigot de Preameneau, then a member of the Council of State,
and afterwards Minister of Cults. A lucid survey of the previous
course of legislation from the pen of Bigot was submitted to
the First Consul and printed in the Moniteur, and a decree was
issued upon the recommendations of the commission enumerating
the dues and services which were to be presumed ' purely terri-
torial,1 and therefore not to be abolished without an indemnity
to the owner. No fairer settlement could probably have been
arrived at, and since facilities were subsequently given by the
government for further emancipation by purchase, the tension
between peasant and proprietor was sensibly relieved1.

The problem of usury, always pressing in a society of small
cultivators, was rendered specially acute in Alsace and the four
departments by the presence of a large Hebrew element in the
Rhenish towns. Napoleon's attention was drawn to this evil in
1806, and it is characteristic of his mental grasp that, advertised
of a purely local grievance, he at once addressed himself to the
consideration of the whole position of the Hebrew race in the
State. The principles upon which he decided to act were at once
honourable and sagacious. His object was, in his own words, to
s reanimate the sentiments of civic morality ' in a race which was
deadened by long degradation, and to ' recall it to the exercise

1 Moniteur, no. 19, xix Vend. XIII ; Decret relatifaucc redevancesfoncieres
et feodales dans les quatre departements de la rive gauche du Rhin, 10 oct.
1804 ; Daniels, iv. 554 ; Decret concernant le rachat des redevances connues
sous la denomination 'Leibgewinn,' 24 juin 1808 et 6 mars 1810 ; id. v.
368, 484.

THE RHINE DEPARTMENTS 369

of the arts and the useful professions.1 Not only must the culti-
vator be protected from the Jew, but the Jew must be protected
against himself. He must serve in the army, and be debarred
from purchasing substitutes ; he must be prevented from prac-
tising usury ; his worship must be controlled by the State.
Accordingly, in 1806, a decree was issued to stay the payment
of debts owed by the cultivators of the soil to the Jews, pending
the promulgation of a well-considered law upon usury ; and after
the lapse of two years a provisional settlement was made. The
decree concerning the Jews of March 17, 1808, annulled all
contracts made between Jews on the one hand, and minors,
women, and soldiers on the other, unless the agreement was
ratified by some person in authority, as for instance the hus-
band in the case of a woman, or the commanding officer in the
case of a soldier. If the interest upon any loan exceeded ten
per cent., the debt was to be cancelled ; if it exceeded five per
cent., the rate was to be reduced. No Jew in future was per-
mitted to open business without a patent from the prefect, based
upon a certificate from the municipal council on the one hand,
and the consistory of the synagogue on the other. Nor could
any Jew not actually domiciled be admitted henceforward into
the departments of the Upper and Lower Rhine. This decree,
framed with the double object of protecting the Rhenish peasant
from usury and of weaning the Jew from illicit and debasing
forms of commerce, was only to remain in force for ten years.
That it partially restored Hebrew disabilities, and certainly
violated the abstract principles of equality and freedom, will
not be denied. But it must be judged as a disciplinary and
remedial measure, devised to arrest a grave evil, and certainly
adapted to promote the prosperity of the most deserving class
in the community1.

The efforts of Napoleon to win the loyalty of the rural popu-
lation of the Rhineland were admirably seconded by vigorous
prefects, who encouraged the exportation of grain, provided for
the gradual extinction of the communal debt, and, letting out
communal property at remunerative rates, applied the rents to
local purposes. The zeal of Count Adrien de Lezay-Marnesia,

1 Decrees of May 30, 1806, March 17, 1808 (Daniel, v. 80, 336) ; and
cf. Law on the rate of interest, Sept. 3, 1807 (id. v. 282).
fisher b b

370 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

prefect from 1806 to 1810, was long remembered in the Depart-
ment of the Rhin-et-Moselle. He lined the roads with fruit-
trees, founded at his own expense a normal school for the train-
ing of village teachers, where lessons were given in the art of
grafting, in the preparation of wine and cider, and in the ele-
ments of agriculture and forestry. Under his intelligent rule
the backward and neglected populations of the Eiffel and the
Hundsriick were brought into connection with the great artery
of the Rhine by a system of good lateral roads. The garden of
the castle of Coblentz was converted into a nursery garden for
the department ; and though the attempt to acclimatize the
Spanish merino led to no great results, the breed of cattle and
horses was improved, new crops were introduced, and a general
stimulus was given to agricultural improvements \ In the
neighbouring Department of Mont-Tonnerre, the elderly but
vigorous Jean Bon St. Andre, who had once administered the
marine of France, restored the mulberry plantations and the
communal forests, drained marshes, reclaimed waste land, and put
a bridle upon the inundations of the Rhine. At the end of the
Napoleonic period there were even complaints that the peasant
had become over-prosperous, that he sat in the taproom playing
for gold stakes, and that no wine would content him but the best2.
The towns benefited in a lesser degree by the policy of Napo-
leon, but there were at least no guilds to stifle commerce, and no
revolutionary commissioners to engineer atrocities. Coblentz
and Bonn might regret a luxurious Court and an expensive
nobility, but charity was better organized, public works more
actively undertaken, and roads multiplied and improved. It
was the intention of Napoleon to make Mainz a great centre of
commerce. ' We will cause the merchandise of the Mediter-
ranean,' he said to the mayor, 'to come here by the Rhine
Canal, and the great merchants of Frankfort will bring us their
money V But though the city was declared to be a free port,
and a stone bridge was projected over the Rhine, the continental

1 Sepp, Gorres und seine Zeitgenossen, 54 ; Spach, Comte Adrien de Lezay-
Marnesia.

2 Levy-Schneider, Jean Bon St. Andre ; Perthes, Politische Zustdnde und
Personen in Deutschland.

8 Michel Nicolas, Jean Bon St, Andre, 135-6.

THE RHINE DEPARTMENTS 371

blockade was fatal to any real development. A German who
travelled down the Rhine in 1812 has described the unnatural
calm caused by the almost entire cessation of traffic, the poverty
and decadence of the small places on the banks, and the long
line of huts, set at regular intervals of a thousand paces, in
which the customs officers of the French Empire kept their
sterilizing vigils \

On the other hand, France now freely opened her markets to
Rhenish wares, a concession which we might think would have
compensated for the fiscal barrier which severed the Rhine-
lander from Germany, or for the continental blockade which
deprived him of the produce of the tropics. But the natural
movements of commerce can seldom be affected permanently
and never beneficially by the fiat of the legislator, and the efforts
of the French government to withdraw the left bank from its
economic dependence upon Germany resulted in failure. In
a report of October 31, 1810, to the Minister of the Interior,
the prefect of Mont-Tonnerre speaks as follows : ' Our commerce
with the interior is almost zero ; ... we buy nothing and we sell
nothing. All our wines, our grains, our oils, our hemp, our
rape-seed, and nine-tenths of our tobacco are exported abroad
either to Holland or to Germany V And the big traders still
kept their balances at the bank of Vienna.

The police of the Empire, always strict and efficient, nowhere
achieved a more signal triumph than in the departements reunis.
During the miseries of the revolutionary period a well-organized
gang of criminals, commanded by a wretch named John Buckler
(better known under the nickname of Schinderhannes), and
admirably served by a force of Jewish spies, kept this region
in a continual- state of alarm. Houses were broken into on
dark nights ; men were knocked over in country lanes ; and
a series of villainous crimes, unredeemed by a single touch of
chivalry, called loudly for punishment. A lucky accident
delivered Buckler into the hands of justice in 1802, and the
ingenuity and patience of the police succeeded soon afterwards
in discovering his accomplices. When the guillotine had done

1 Annalen des hist. Ver. f. den Niederrhein, 1867, 172, and Eilers, iii.
4, 5, on the decay of Coblentz, once the seat of the Court of Treves.

2 Quoted by Levy-Schneider, Revolution francaise, Feb. 1902, 160.

ub2

Sn NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

its work, it was again possible to travel in security over
country roads1.

Unlike the other German territories of the Empire, the four
departments were spared the direct visitation of war until
1814. They were, of course, frequently traversed by French
armies, not always under the best control, but these military
movements were not without compensation, for the French
soldier spent his money freely, and the tradesmen of the Rhine-
land were the first to profit from the plunder of their German
neighbours.

It would appear that the conscription was not seriously felt,
for it was always easy to obtain a substitute for payment, and
even to raise volunteers. The men liked their comfortable
quarters in Germany, the life, the loot, the stir, the glory, and
for many a farm-labourer of the Rhineland there was no higher
thing than to die in battle for the great Emperor2. The
marriage of Napoleon with Marie Louise seemed to conciliate
the new with the old loyalty, and was greeted with genuine
enthusiasm by a population which had always regarded Vienna
with affection and Berlin with dislike3. In 1810, when the
Emperor toured through the Rhine provinces with his newly
married wife, all hearts were won. It was not till 1818 that
old memories began to revive, and an active spirit of discontent,
mainly caused by military requisitions, manifested itself in the
country 4. But the inhabitants had no burning desire to change
their political allegiance, for upon the whole they had prospered
under the rule of Napoleon.

These provinces, whose acquisition was the dream of centuries,
and the most precious trophy of the revolutionary arms, passed
away from France in the cataclysm of the Empire. The
Congress of Vienna, careless here as everywhere of the deeper
affinities, carved the region into three segments, of which the
largest, extending between Bingen and the Dutch frontier,
became Rhenish Prussia. A slip of territory south of this,

1 A curious account of these brigands is contained in Causes criminelles
celebres du Mot? Steele, 1827, ii. 58 ff.

2 Neigebaur, 280 ff. 3 Id. 283.

* Bockenheimer, Geschichte der Stadt Mainz in den Jahren 1813 und
1814.

THE RHINE DEPARTMENTS 373

from Bingen to Worms and including the city of Mainz, was
given to the Grand-Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt; while the
country still further to the south, which lay between Worms
and the northern border of Alsace, passed into the hands of
Bavaria as a recompense for her assistance in the war, and
became known as the Bavarian Palatinate. The change was
viewed by the inhabitants with indifference, if not with active
dislike, and grateful memories of the Napoleonic epoch lingered
far into the nineteenth century \ It was here, indeed, that the
system of the Empire was seen at its best, repairing material
waste, obliterating senseless divisions, driving into a torpid
populace its keen and vital energies, and in the ordered
structure of French law bequeathing one of the most splendid
legacies which a conqueror has ever left to a vanquished
province.

1 ' On sait encore le Code Napoleon a Mayenee, ainsi que dans toute la partie
du Palatinat dependant du Grand-duche de Hesse-Darmstadt : et meme sur
la rive droite du Rhin, ou Vancien droit germanique s'est maintenu, la legisla-
tion financiere repose encore sur celle de la France, modifiee seulement par
quelques ordonnances du Due regnant. Bien d'autres travauoc de notre influence
y subsistent.' — Lerebours, Napoleon et les Mayen$ais} 1858.

Chief Authorities : The French laws (1792-1814) are most con-
veniently consulted in Bormann und Daniel's Handbuch der fur die
Kbnigl. Preuss. Rheinprovinzen verkiindigten Gesetze, Verordnungen und
Regierungsbeschliisse aus der Zeit der Fremdherrschaft, Koln, 1834, 8 vols. ;
Perthes, Politische Zustande und Personen in Deutschland ; Rambaud, Les
Frangais sur le Rhin ; Gorres, Politische Schriften ; Neigebaur, Darstellung
der provisorischen Verwaltung am Rhein von 1813 bis 1819 ; Ennen, Zeit-
bilder aus der neueren Geschichte der Stadt Koln ; Eilers, Meine Wanderung
durch's Leben ; Levy-Schneider, Les habitans de la rive gauche du Rhin
{Revolution francaise, Feb. and March 1902); id., Jean Bon St. Andre ;
Bodmann, Annuaire statistique du departement de Mont-Tonnerre ; Spach,
Comte Adrien de Lezay-Marnesia ; van Alpen, Geschichte des frankischen
Rheinufers : was es war und was es itzt ist.

CHAPTER XVII

CONCLUSIONS

The working faith of the best men of the French Revolution
was the legacy of eighteenth-century philosophy, belief in
scientific progress, in growing material comfort, in natural
rights, in religious toleration, and in the ultimate triumph of
good sense throughout the world. It was a philosophy which
took little heed of the various temperaments and idiosyncrasies
of men or nations, regarding humanity as something homo-
geneous through place and time, capable of being nourished by
the same food and rescued by the same medicines. It paid
scant attention to historical conditions, believing that in
politics, as in physics, there was a mathematical art of discovery
and scientific certainty of truth. The Christian religion it
despised as superstitious, vulgar, and degrading to human
dignity.

Napoleon brought France to earth. We may call him the
first of the Romantics for his love of Ossian and his haunting
dreams of oriental enterprise, or else the last of the Classics,
remembering the lapidary style of his correspondence, his
passion for Corneille, the studied and unstudied Caesarism of
his politics. But the thing which made the Consulate great
was Napoleon's realism, his close and comprehensive grasp of
facts. He saw men as they were, gauged their characters,
flattered their vanities, and in his political calculus allowed for
vulgar foibles as well as for science and good sense. He had
the strong dash of cynicism which the enthusiasts lacked, and
this, though often repulsive in its excess, was valuable in an age
of hyperbolic expectations. There has been no greater master
in the art of using, driving, and inspiring men. He found
great disorder and demoralization ; he created a bureaucracy
more competent, active, and enlightened than any which Europe

CONCLUSIONS 375

had seen. But as the Consulate passed into the Empire, and
as the growing palsy of despotism spread over France, the quality
of the work declined. The best men hated the never-ending
wars, and saw insanity written in large tokens over their
master's schemes. The blockade, the conscription, the arrange-
ments for the cantonment and provisioning of troops, the
supervision of the press, consumed their most valuable energies,
and the Emperor, growing ever more impatient of contradiction,
cared for little else. All criticism, all independent political
thought expired. Resolutely closing his eyes to unpleasant
facts, Napoleon insisted that his servants should be blind also,
and being despotic and irritable, he was able to exact a con-
stant supply of nutriment for his illusions. The men who
spoke the truth and thought justly were dismissed or scolded,
and as compliance came to be rated more highly than ability,
the most precious qualities were excised from public life.

Insensibility to bribes was not the strong point of the
eighteenth century, and neither English nor German politics
have much to boast in that respect. But the accusation
levelled in Germany against the French and also against the
Germans who helped to work the French system is, not that
they trafficked in opinions, but that they blackmailed the
helpless. Napoleon was a strict disciplinarian and reprobated
private plunder, and from time to time an official of the
Empire was compelled to disgorge ill-gotten gains. To his
lasting credit it must be said that he was free from the slightest
taint of pecuniary ambition, that he never lost an opportunity
of denouncing the meanness of fortune-hunting, and that by his
strict system of national accounts, no less than by his personal
example, he did much to correct the singularly loose code of
pecuniary morality which prevailed even among the most
distinguished public servants of the French State. On the
other hand, the spoliation of foreign countries inaugurated
under the Directorate, and systematized by Napoleon, must
have set the worst of examples to those French officers and
civilians who were employed abroad. It will always be difficult
to persuade public officials that the State has any monopoly of
a tempting vice. Consequently we seem to hear two voices,
distinct, sincere, and contradictory, in the French administrative

376 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

correspondence of this epoch. 'It is our mission,' says one
voice, ■ to spread the light of our splendid civilization, to base
government on human reason, to create model constitutions, in
which administrative efficiency shall be combined with the
representation of learning and substance, and to sweep away
the absurdities of privilege and superstition. Under our rule
the rights of man will be restored, and all the obstacles to
material progress raised by the selfishness of prince or noble,
of priest or guild, will crumble at a touch. Roads and aque-
ducts, gardens and promenades, canals and quays, an improved
system of education, these we will make, and there is no
burgher taking his afternoon stroll, or peasant bringing vege-
tables to market, who shall not find cause for grateful memories
of our care. The conquests of science shall be applied to the
common arts of life, and shall enrich agriculture and industry, and
ward off disease. Germany, indeed, is a confederation of States
formed under our protection, and some of these States are ruled
by Frenchmen. But it is for no ignoble end that we exercise
our political authority. We are practical, and the Germans
are idealists ; we are emancipated, and the Germans are en-
slaved. Each of these little States ruled by us is to be a
model of reasonable contrivance, a seed-plot destined to refine
the whole political vegetation of Germany.'

But side by side with this idea of beneficence there is the
idea of exploitation. ' This country,' says another voice, ' these
patient tobacco-smoking, beer-drinking Germans, exist for us
and for our ambitions. We have destroyed their own constitu-
tion which was comic, and given them another which is
convenient. By this means our military operations are aided
by a considerable German army, which, although prone to
plunder, possesses the soldierly qualities of courage and stead-
fastness. We have carved out from Germany certain reserved
domains, from which we can assist our own taxpayers, and
endow our successful generals. The management of these
estates is often a source of profit to French agents. Owing to
our war with England, we are compelled to enforce a continental
blockade which damages German commerce, but the incon-
venience is temporary, and may in the end be more than
counterbalanced by the extraction of sugar from the beetroot,

CONCLUSIONS 377

and the discovery of agreeable substitutes for coffee. Mean-
while it is unfortunately impossible to compensate the injured
manufacturers by throwing open to them the French or even
the Dutch market, for such a course would expose us to foreign
competition of a most odious kind, and recall the dark days of
Pitt's commercial treaty. It would be foolish to allow the
Germans, who understand so little, to express opinions adverse
to our system, and so we muzzle the press, police the universities,
and "shadow" all vigorous and intellectual persons. The
German princes we bully and exploit. We do not much care
how they govern, so long as they provide their quota of troops,
and provision our forces when they happen to be quartered in
their territories. It is, on the whole, to our interest that they
should be despotic, for if they were hampered by refractory
Estates, how could they supply us punctually with our tribute
of soldiers ? And thus we have everywhere encouraged the
most absolute autocracy. We do not expect to rule the
Germans for ever. Indeed, we have taken the precaution of
removing the most valuable pictures from their galleries. The
Bavarians, with a promptitude which might almost be termed
discourteous, anticipated us at Dusseldorf, where our Com-
missioner found little or nothing deserving his attention.
Our generals were also disappointed with Hanover, a poor and
insipid province, from which they were able to remit only the
most inconsiderable trifles — some fine horses and a manuscript,
the Consilium JEgyptiacum of Leibnitz. It is best that these
and other treasures should be concentrated in Paris, where they
will be accessible to civilized mankind.

6 A great many of our young men have made fortunes out of
Germany, not only as generals — a most lucrative profession —
but also as police agents, customs officers, and administrators of
domains. They will return satisfied to their parents. Others
have been less fortunate through wounds and death. The
Westphalian army has proved to be convenient, offering as it
does higher rank and better pay to French officers who have
been left behind in the race for promotion, or have other
reasons for desiring a change. Indeed, it will be found that the
applications for Westphalian service generally come from those
who have in some way been crossed in their careers. Our

378 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

soldiers have often been enabled to surround themselves with
comforts, even with luxuries, when quartered in German cities,
and it is well that there should be some compensation, however
illicit, for the perils and hardships which they are called upon
to endure. But Germany is always exile. We are never at
home in this strange country. Fortunately a knowledge of the
language is quite unnecessary for administrative posts."'

Thus the Napoleonic system, albeit containing many elements
of splendid promise, became the despair of its best servants.
Men of high aims and unquestioned integrity were made
accomplices in a suspicious and restless despotism. They had
dreamed the dream of an ' Allemagne fran^aise? They saw
their work shattered before their eyes, the ideal of exploitation
conquering the ideal of beneficence, the enthusiasm of the
governed passing into acquiescence, and the acquiescence into
concentrated hate.

The Nemesis of this spirit of exploitation was that in the
reaction the good perished with the bad. In Hanover, in
Hesse-Cassel, in Brunswick, the old governments returned,
popular, unrepentant, and uninstructed by calamity. The re-
action was particularly violent in Hesse-Cassel, where the Elector
actually annulled all the alienations of the royal domain which
had been made under the preceding government, but it was also
clearly marked in every other portion of Germany which had
been ruled by the French \ The Code was swept out of Posen
and Hesse-Cassel, Brunswick and the Hanseatic departments,
and Savigny had no difficulty in explaining to a learned and
sympathetic audience that it was founded upon discussions
which were trivial, perfunctory, and ignorant2. Yet some
fragments of the Napoleonic system survived the cataclysm.
Though the Elector of Hesse restored the old corvees and
feudal dues, he found it convenient to maintain the abolition
of patrimonial jurisdiction. The Jews, whose pecuniary assist-
ance was always valuable to a miserly monarch, were allowed
to preserve some of the privileges accorded to them under the
French rule ; and the religious disabilities, abolished by Napo-

1 Wippermann, Kurhessen sett dem Freiheitskriege ; Heinemannj Ge-
schichte von Braunschweig und Hannover.

2 Vom Berufunsrer Zeitfiir Gesetzgebung.

CONCLUSIONS 379

leon, were never reimposed in the Electorate of Hesse or in the
Grand-Duchy of Fulda, which was united to it upon the con-
clusion of the peace \ When the project for the German Civil
Code came before the Reichstag in 1900, it was stated that
seventeen per cent, of the fifty million inhabitants of the Ger-
man Empire were still ruled by French law 2. In the Prussian,
Hessian, and Bavarian Rhine provinces, and in Alsace-Lorraine,
the Code Napoleon was administered in its original tongue ;
while a German translation, only slightly differing from its
French prototype, was current in Baden 3. That the Code
should have persisted in any portion of Germany, when all the
circumstances of the War of Liberation are taken into account,
is a remarkable tribute to its merits. We may admit that its
preparation was hurried, that the discussions in the Council of
State were often unsatisfactory, and that it is based upon an
imperfect survey of practical contingencies. There is doubtless
great weight in Savigny's contention that Germany was not
ripe for a Code, and that the legal system of a country should
be the natural result of its historical development. But the
choice in 1807 and in 1815 did not lie between pure German
and pure French law. It lay between the Code Napoleon
on the one hand, sketchy no doubt, and over-simplified, but
lucid, intelligible, and portable, and ' an endless waste of contra-
dictory, conjectural, and motley ordinances . . . calculated to
make it impossible for judges and advocates to obtain a thorough
knowledge of the law, and so imperfect that ninety out of a
hundred cases have to be decided by Roman, canon, or received
foreign law V We cannot wonder that in comparison with this
hybrid miscellany the French Code seemed to many Germans to
be the utterance of Reason herself5. The separation of conten-
tious from non-contentious jurisdiction, the organization of the

1 Treitschke_, Deutsche Geschichte, iii. 523-34.

2 Mugdan, Die gesammten Materialien zum Bilrgerlichen Gesetzbuch,
i. 847-8. I owe this reference to the kindness of Professor Maitland.

3 Holtzendorff, Encyclop'ddie der Rechtswissenschaft, 296. Schroder gives
a useful map showing the diffusion of the Civil Code in 1894 ; Lehrbuch
der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte.

4 Thibaut, Ueber die Nothwendigkeit eines attgemeinen bilrgerlichen Rechts
fur Deutschland, 7.

5 Stobbe, Geschichte des deutschen Rechts, 484 if.

380 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

notariat, the sharp distinction between judicial and executive
functions, the introduction of oral pleading and of the jury, the
abolition of the Carolina wherever it survived, the stricter
definition of judicial competence, these were felt in many quar-
ters to be unmixed benefits flowing from the French rule1*
That there should have been some opposition to these innova-
tions need cause no surprise, for lawyers are as wedded to the
law which they practise as are professors to the law which they
teach. But, on the whole, the French legal system met with
remarkable acceptance, and it was a grave misfortune that it
should have been abolished in Brunswick and Hesse when it
was working well and had given satisfaction 2.

The agrarian reforms of the Revolution, the Consulate, and
the Empire had scarcely had time to take full effect save in the
Rhenish provinces. Elsewhere, French domination had been
short-lived, and French legislation tentative and respectful of
vested interests. Indeed, save for one circumstance, in itself
connected with the career of Napoleon, there is no doubt that
the French land settlement would have been overthrown through-
out Germany after the War of Liberation. That circumstance
was the agrarian legislation of Stein and Hardenberg in Prussia.
That the reforms of these two great statesmen, undertaken to
repair the Prussian disaster of 1806, were complete or fully
satisfactory it would be absurd to pretend, for they left un-
touched the patrimonial jurisdiction of the lord, and provided
no adequate machinery for the commutation of labour dues.
/ But they were the first attack upon a system defended by one
of the hardest and most stubborn aristocracies in Europe, and
in the general reaction which followed the battle of Leipzig, the
work of Stein and Hardenberg was not undone. It may, indeed,
be argued that it was not until then that its full value for Ger-

1 Grolman, Ausfilhrliches Handbuch iiber den Code Napoleon, Giessen
und Darmstadt, 1810.

2 The following is a list of the territories on the right bank of the
Rhine which received the French law :— Danzig (Nov. 19, 1807) ; West-
phalia (Nov. Id, 1807) ; Arenburg (Jan. 28, 1808) ; Grand-Duchy of
Warsaw (1808 and 1810) ; Baden (July 5, 1808) ; Frankfort (Sept. 15,
1809); Berg (Jan. 1, 1810); Lippe department (May 29, 1810);
Hanseatic departments (Dec. 10, 1810) ; Duchy of Kothen (Dec. 28,
1810) ; Duchy of Nassau (Feb. 1 and 4, 1811).

CONCLUSIONS 381

many was disclosed, since but for the fact that Prussia had taken
in hand the reform of her own land-system, there would have
been little chance of any part of the French settlement sur-
viving. As it was, Prussia obtained the Duchy of Posen, the
Duchy of Berg, and part of the Rhenish provinces in 1815, and
the Prussian administrators were strong enough to disregard the
appeals of the nobility for the restoration of the feudal system.
In these provinces, therefore, the hand of the clock was not set
back. On the contrary, the Prussian government zealously
exerted itself to repair the ravages of war and to promote
material prosperity ; and though many passages in Prussian
history are more illustrious, there is none more truly honourable
than the great work done by the Prussian administrators in the
districts ceded to the Hohenzollerns by the Congress of Vienna.
Elsewhere, the reaction was both furious and stupid, and a worse
pair of rulers than Duke Charles of Brunswick or William II of
Hesse it would be difficult to find in the whole range of modern
history. Cassel was to witness scandals far uglier than any
associated with the merry days of King Jerome. The most
elementary rights had to be extorted by popular force, and
in the risings of 1830 there was a substratum of thought
derived from the recollection of all that was modern and en-
lightened in the Westphalian kingdom.

The influence of Napoleon upon the general political structure
of Germany is more easy to determine. He reduced the number
of sovereign princes, simplified the political geography, secular-
ized the ecclesiastical States, built up Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and
Baden, and abolished the Holy Roman Empire.

The elimination of Austrian influence from Germany was not
permanent, though it was never again destined to be exercised
in ways so various, intricate and subtle : and the Confederation
of the Rhine perished when Bavaria signed the Treaty of Ried
in 1813. But though the nineteenth century witnessed the
revival of Roman Catholic influence in the Rhenish bishoprics,
none of the work of 1803 has ever been undone ; and many of
the results of the victory of Austerlitz are still marked upon our
maps. Indeed, without the great winnowing-fan of the Napo-
leonic wars to scatter the chaff and sift the grain, who knows if
the political unity of Germany would ever have been attained ?

382 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

Whether it was to the advantage of France to clear the floor
of Germany of its mediaeval rubble is another question. Napoleon
thought one thing in 1797, and in 1803 and 1806 he did another.
Yet the mediation of 1803 and the abolition of the Empire in
1806 were dictated by interests which at the time seemed im-
perative, for while the one settled the questions arising out of
the French conquest of the Rhine frontier, the other drove
Austria out of Germany and placed Napoleon at the head of
a Germanic Confederacy. Such a Confederacy had been formed
by Mazarin in 1658, and followed the lines of an old tradition,
nor was there any reason founded on national sympathies or
antipathies why it should not have been permanent, if the terms
had been equitably framed, and if the league had been directed
against the Hapsburgs alone. Neither of these conditions was
observed. By the terms of the act of the Confederation of the
Rhine, the princes of Germany were bound in strict vassalage
to France, and the war with Prussia in 1806 promptly revealed
the extent of their liabilities. If the Emperor of the French
had been prudent, he would have spared no effort to avert this
contest. The Germanic States from 1740 to 1805 had grouped
themselves round the two contending forces of Austria and
Prussia, and this dualism was not only thoroughly engrained in
German politics, but was also the foundation of French influence
in Central Europe. Napoleon eliminated Austria from the
Germanic system in 1805, and left Germany divided between
Frederick William and himself. A long passage of patient,
delicate, and conciliatory diplomacy might have secured the
stability of this new political equilibrium. But at this supreme
crisis the attitude of France was provocative, and Prussia, tor-
mented by accepted indignities and legitimate fears, rushed into
war. We know the sequel, the French arms crowning the
heights of Auerstadt and Jena, the imperial eagles in Warsaw
and Danzig, the Baltic coast watched for English smugglers
from the Trave to the Vistula, and Jerome gaily masquerading
in Westphalian palaces. For six years Northern Germany was
crushed under the heels of the French legionaries, and German
blood was freely poured in an alien quarrel. The new equili-
brium was shattered as soon as formed, and Germany found
herself under the single mastery of Napoleon. No greater mis-

CONCLUSIONS 383

fortune could have befallen France, for out of Jena and Auerstadt
sprang the resurrection of Prussia, the War of Liberation, and
the ultimate modern German Empire.

The main strength of the Napoleonic position in France was
derived from the support of the peasantry, from the fact that
the Empire was pledged to uphold the agrarian revolution of
1789. But in Germany, Napoleon was primarily allied not with
the peasants but with the princes. ' The Confederation of the
Rhine,"' wrote a French envoy, who possessed a long experience
of German affairs, ' will never be consolidated until the majority
of the inhabitants of each of the confederate States have ac-
quired Church property and national domains, or have redeemed
their real and personal servitudes at a low price, as well as the
greater part of their feudal and seigneurial dues V If Napoleon's
main object had been to create an atmosphere favourable to the
diffusion and the maintenance of French institutions in Germany,
some such an appeal to the appetites of the lower classes might
conceivably have borne fruit. But in view of the unquestioned
popularity of the ruling German dynasties, the step would have
been full of hazard. It might have alienated the princes and
failed to win the peasants. The authority of Napoleon in
Germany therefore depended not upon the interested support
of the populace, but upon personal prestige, the force of arms,
and the alliance of the ruling dynasties. The clergy who had
been secularized, the sovereigns who had been mediatized, the
nobles who had lost or feared to lose dues and services, were
the natural foes of the new order. Only the princes had been
unquestioned gainers, and their gains were solid and permanent.
At the expense of ignominy, they had purchased power. But
the alliance of Napoleon with the princes, though admirably
adapted for its immediate purpose, the control of the military
forces of Germany, was directly opposed to the cause of liberty,
and to all the feelings and tendencies which the French Revolu-
tion had encouraged in the thinking class. Thus, although the
Emperor was able to fascinate some of the older intellects of
Germany, the ; retired robber-captains ' of the storm and stress
period, the heart and brain of younger Germany were ranged

1 Bacher to Champagny, June 11, 1811 ; Affaires etrangeres, Corr. Pol. :
Allemagne, 744.

884 NAPOLEONIC STATESMANSHIP

against him. The War of Liberation was a movement of
peoples rather than a coalition of princes, an outburst of the old
passion for political liberty which France had been the first to
stir, and Napoleon had so ruthlessly attempted to extinguish.
The most zealous guardian of this great tradition was Gorres,
who hailed the dawn of freedom in 1789, preached the crusade
against Napoleon in 1814, and five years later passionately de-
nounced the governments of Germany for their despotism and
breach of faith.

With no patience, with no sense of human dignity, with no
feeling for the pathos of the common lot, Napoleon lacked the
sound and noble gifts which sweeten and inspire public life.
The woman of genius whom he had exiled from France had
a truer and more generous, and therefore a more statesmanlike
vision of the people whose destiny had been so harshly deflected
by the legions of the Empire. The Germany of Madame de
Stael is an ideal picture, and the authoress has been taken to
task for the clouds of sentiment and sympathy with which she
has enveloped her theme. But it is not thus that we should
approach these eloquent discourses. Rather we should see in
them the fine protest of a generous French heart against the
subjection of a simple and laborious people ; an appeal from force
to conscience, from the mailed tyranny of the later Empire to
the ideals of human brotherhood which France had once preached,
and which a cruel destiny had caused her to forget.

INDEX

Abel, 77.

Aix-la-Chapelle, 81, 353, 354, 356,

361.
Albini, Baron d', 85, 122, 314.
Alexander of Russia, 40, 75, 99, 105,

125,129, 144 ff., 148.
Alkmaar, capitulation of, 38.
Amiens, breach of the Peace of, 43,

48, 49.
Artlenburg, Convention of, 57.
Artois, Count of, 67, 69.
Aschaffenburg, 43, 112, 312, 317,

324, 329.

Auerstadt, 131, 137, 138, 382.
Augusta of Bavaria, 96, 109.
Austerlitz, 103, 106, 126, 129, 142,

161, 175, 176, 334.
Austria, policy of, at Campo-Formio,

29 ; views as to secularization, 39 ;

power in Empire weakened, 43, 44 ;

declines to intervene in d'Enghien

affair, 75 ; Empire of, 81, 123 ;

recognition of French Empire by,

81 ; alleged aggression of, 102 ;

losses of, by Treaty of Pressburg,

107 ; aids revolts in Westphalia,

253, 254 ; influence of, on Germany,

381 ; eliminated from Germanic

system, 382.

Baden, Napoleon's courtesy to, 32,
101 ; enlargement of, 42, 44, 45,
107, 381 ; required to expel emigres,
72 ; territory violated, 73 ; sub-
mission of, 74, 75 ; tempted with
Breisgau, 87, 88 ; gains of, by
Treaty of Pressburg, 108, 168;
negotiates for Concordat, 169 ;
treatment of Jews in, 329 ; Code
Napoleon in, 379, 380.

Baden, Grand-Duke of: see Charles
Frederick.

Basle, Peace of, 24, 29, 49, 124.

Bavaria, backwardness of, 9 ; en-
largement of, 44, 45, 107 ; expels
Drake, 77 ; drawn into French
alliance, 95, 96 ; gains of, by

Treaty of Pressburg, 107, 108,
168 ; desires special Concordat,
113, 167 ff. ; objects to French
protectorate, 121 ; booksellers
arrested in, 129, 130 ; cedes Berg
in exchange for Anspach, 176 ;
treatment of Jews in, 329.

Bavaria, Elector of : see Maximilian
Joseph. Electress of : see Caroline
of Bavaria.

Bayonne, Treaty of, 153, 190, 191 ;
Murat summoned to, 187.

Belgium, cession of, 27.

Berg, Murat becomes Grand-Duke
of, 111, 177 ; territory of, aug-
mented, 145, 182 ; constitution of,
155, 183 ff., 197; Beugnot made
Imperial Commissioner in, 191 ;
Prince Napoleon Louis, Grand-
Duke of, 194 ; educational and
religious policy in, 195, 209, 211 ;
legal administration in, 196 ff. ; abo-
lition of serfage in, 203 ; trade and
manufactures of, 205 ; conscrip-
tion in, 215 ; fiscal policy of, 217 ;
Grand-Duchy of, comes to an end,
221.

Berlin, Treaty of, 297.

Bernadotte, 60, 64, 89, 90, 97, 156,
337.

Berry, Duke of, 67, 69.

Beugnot, Count, 183, 191, 195 ff.,
210, 213, 219, 221, 235, 237, 246.

Beust, Count, 77, 85.

Blucher, General, 125, 135, 335.

Bonaparte, Jerome : see Jerome.

Bonaparte, Joseph : see Joseph.

Bonaparte, Louis : see Louis.

Bonaparte, Napoleon : see Napoleon.

Bremen, 43, 50, 54, 61, 62, 64, 333,
335-7, 347.

Brunn, Treaty of, 107-

Brunswick, Elector of : see Charles
Ferdinand.

Brunswick-Oels, Duke of, 251, 253,
303.

Biilow, Baron von, 237 ff.

FISHER

c c

386

INDEX

Cadoudal Plot, 68-71.

Cambridge, Duke of, 12, 54.

Cameral Science, 20.

Campo-Formio, 25 ff.

Caroline of Bavaria, 95.

Cassel, projected League of, 47 ;
Jerome's entry into, 235 ; first
parliament in, 241 ; German lan-
guage in, 247 ; French adventurers
in, 248 ; alarmed at revolts, 253 ;
von Strombeck at, 260 ; schools in,
286 ; financial condition of, 298.

Charles Ferdinand of Brunswick,
125 ; character and career of, 137 ;
deposed and exiled, 139, 289 ; his
son leads a revolt, 253, 254.

Charles Frederick of Baden, frees
serfs, 23 ; is made an Elector, 45 ;
his character, 73, 74 ; comes to
Mainz, 82 ; sends his son and
grandson to imperial coronation,
87 ; forced to abandon Bavarian
match, 96 ; signs Treaty of Ettlin-
gen, 97 ; is aggrandized and pro-
moted, 107, 108.

Cisalpine Republic, 26, 94.

Cisrhenane Confederation, 79, 80.

Cisrhenane Republic, 24, 352, 356.

Cleves, Duchy of, 176, 178, 180;
Diet of, 186; territory of, 187;
town of, 350 ; and see Berg.

Code Napoleon, 188 ff., 197, 232,
241, 257, 260, 285, 328, 378, 379,
380 n.

Concordat, German, 87, 109, 113,
163 ff., 171.

Conde, Prince of, 67.

Confederation of the Rhine, seeds of,
45, 47, 81, 86, 88 ; Treaty of, signed,
117 ; German princes join, 118 ;
purposes and provisions of treaty,
120 ; ratification of treaty, 121 ;
joined by Saxony, 135 ; fundamental
statute for, 163, 171 J Diet of, 164,
172.

Consulate, brilliance of, 48.

Continental blockade, 63, 125, 142,
154, 206, 236, 298, 319, 333 ff.

Cuxhaven, 63, 125, 255, 336.

Dalberg, Baron von, 74, 75, 80.

Dalberg, Karl Theodor von, an
Electorate designed for, 42 ; given
Bishopric of Ratisbon,43 ; expresses
through envoy indignation with
Drake, 77 ; character and career
of, 82-5; discusses Concordat and

scheme for Federation, 87, 88 ; sub-
mits schemes of reform to Napoleon,
112 ; proposes Fesch as coadjutor,
113 ; is given Frankfort, 119 ; signs
Treaty of the Confederation of the
Rhine, 122 ; draws up constitution
for Rhenish Confederation, 163 ;
aims at Patriarchate, 164, 168, 170 ;
his rule in Frankfort, 312 ff. ; appeals
for an organization, 317 ; loses
Ratisbon, 318 ; his educational
policy, 328 ; forces Jews to buy
civic rights, 330.

Danzig, 145, 146, 302, 344.

Davout, Marshal, 148, 151, 154, 156,
305, 343, 348.

Didelot, 78, 99.

Dornberg, Baron von, 240, 250.

Drake, 76, 77-

Dresden, Convention of, 148, 149.

Dumouriez, 71, 73.

Durbach, C. F., 59.

Dusseldorf, 177, 184, 193 ff., 210.

Elbe, Convention of, 57.

Ems Punktation, 10.

Enghien, Due d', 71-3, 125.

England, her opposition and its con-
sequences, 49 ; excluded from Elbe
and Weser, 127 ; Napoleon's ani-
mosity towards, 141, 142 ; trade
with Germany prohibited, 319, 320,
334, 337 ; annexes Heligoland, 339.

Ephemerides du citoyen, 20.

Estates : see Landstande.

Eugene, Prince, 96, 109, 175, 319.

Eylau, 144, 147.

Febronius, 10.

Fersen, Count, 34.

Fesch, Cardinal, 112 ff., 168, 319.

Fichte, 277.

France, ignorance of German litera-
ture in, 3, 4 ; ignorance of German
language in, 4, 246 ; intellectual
supremacy of, in Europe, 5 ; Re-
volution, influence of, in Germany,
22, 53, 203, 352, 364, 366, 383;
war with England, 49, 62, 68 ;
foundation of Empire in, 80 ; war
with Prussia, 124 ; Concordat in,
167, 171 ; drifts into war with
Russia, 306, 348 ; ruins commerce
and manufactures in Berg, 206, 209,
219 ; establishes free trade with
Rhine departments, 371 ; effects of
Napoleonic system on, 382, 383.

INDEX

387

Francis II, 43, 75, 81, 96, 123.

Frankfort, town of, 43, 119 ; union
of, 47 ; Emigres at, 70 ; Diet of, 118,
164, 165 ; Grand-Duchy of, 312 ;
treatment of Jews in, 313 if., 330 ;
English trade in, 319, 320 ; French
army in, 321 ; German officials in,
322 ; local government in, 323,
324 ; French law in, 325 ff. ; edu-
cation in, 328 ; serfdom in, 330 ;
conscription in, 331.

Frankfort, Grand-Duke of : see Dal-
berg.

Frederick Augustus, Elector of
Saxony, 130; receives Grand-Duchy
of Warsaw, 148 ; makes ruinous
bargain with Napoleon, 153.

Frederick II of Wurtemberg, made
an Elector, 45 ; quarrel with son,
87 ; character and aims of, 98 ;
contract of, with Napoleon, 103-6 ;
becomes King, 107.

Frederick William of Prussia, 17,
36, 51, 91, 125, 127, 131, 135, 145,
147, 382.

Free towns, 42, 43 ff., 61, 65, 334 ;
and see Hanseatic towns.

French Empire, foundation of, 80.

Frere, General, 50, 90.

Friedland, 144, 147.

Fulda, 128, 140, 154, 157, 158, 318,
321, 324, 329, 379.

George II, 51.

George III, 52, 79.

German Catholicism, 9, 10, 11, 134,
140, 166, 170, 212, 318, 324, 351,
362.

German Empire, constitution of, 6,
7 ; injured by Campo-Formio, 27-
9 ; views of Napoleon on, 31 ;
changes in 1803, 43, 44 ; changes
in 1806, 116 ff. ; French law in
(1900), 379 ; rise of the modern,
383.

German Princes, greed of, 8, 120,
164 ; their zeal for Napoleon, 103 ;
Napoleon's views on, 115 ; fifteen
join the Rhenish Confederation,
118 ; attitude of, towards the
Church, 170; in ecclesiastical prin-
cipalities, 351 ; vassalage to France,
382 ; power of, increased by alliance
with Napoleon, 383.

Germany, intellectual emancipation
of, from France, 2, 3 ; Hellenism
in, 2, 277 ; knowledge of French in,

c c

4, 5 ; difference of, from France,
6 ; constitution of, 6, 7 ; political
divisions in, 8 ; religious divisions
in, 9 ; Sturm und Drang in, 14 ;
militarism of, 15 ; administration
in, 17; political life in, 19; Cameral
Science in, 20 ; physiocratic theories
in, 20 ; poverty of, 21 ; submissive-
ness of, 21 ; piety of, 23 ; rear-
rangement of territory in, by pro-
visions of the Rhine league, 119 ;
Northern, after Jena, 130 ff. ; Napo-
leon master of Northern, 141, 382;
organization of Western, 154; Uni-
versities of, 275 ; philosophical
thought in, 277 ; intellectual supre-
macy of, in 1810, 282; War of
Liberation in, 379, 384 ; agrarian
reforms in, 380 ; Napoleon's in-
fluence on political structure of,
381.

Goethe, 23, 351.

Gorres, 357, 360.

Gottingen, 51, 226, 240, 259, 277,
279, 282, 284.

Grimm, Jacob, 240, 292, 324.

Gustavus IV, 75.

Halle, 12, 133, 226, 254, 259, 276,
284.

Hamburg, 43, 61, 62, 64, 70, 89,90,
333 ff.

Hanover, 44, 49-65 ; neutrality of,
49 ; description of, 51 ; constitu-
tion of, 52 ; social conditions in,
53 ; French invasion of, 54-8 ;
French views of, 58 ; patience of,
59 ; French occupation of, 60-1 ;
English spies in, 70 ; given to
Prussia, 126 ; offered to England,
128 ; second military occupation
of, 155, 159 ; financial condition
of, 159 ; ceded to Westphalia,
297 ff. ; exploitation of, by French
generals, 377 ; reaction from Na-
poleonic system in, 378.

Hanoverian Legion, 57.

Hanoverian loan, 61, 160.

Hanoverian Regency, 61.

Hanseatic towns, compelled to ad-
vance money, 61-5 ; trade with
France, 65 ; express through envoy
indignation against Drake, 77 ; re-
fused to Prussia, 128 ; Marshal
Brune in, 159 ; annexed by Napo-
leon, 298, 344 ; Napoleon's control
of, 333 ff. ; reduced to misery,

2

388

INDEX

342; French systems introduced
in, 345 ; education in, 347 » taxa-
tion in, 348.

Hardenberg, Prince of, 125, 380.

Haugwitz, 126, 127.

Hegel, 162, 277.

Heine, 220, 285.

Heligoland, 338.

Herder, 3, 279, 280.

Hesse, Landgrave of: see William
VIII.

Hesse-Cassel, 30, 42, 45, 76, 78,
80, 82, 134; Electoral family of,
deposed, 136 ; military government
of, 156 ; condition of, in 1807,
226, 245, 289 ; the army of, 226,
250, 289 ; reaction from Napoleonic
system in, 378.

Hesse-Darmstadt, Landgrave of: see
Louis.

Heyne, 277, 281, 285.

Hohenlinden, 38.

Holland, annexed by Napoleon, 344 ;
trade with France, 348.

Holland, King of: see Louis Bona-
parte.

Holy Roman Empire, 44, 81, 94,
111, 123, 163, 168, 381.

Imperial Knights, claims of, dis-
regarded, 44, 102, 103 ; domains
of, mediatized, 107, 119.

Italy, crown of, 94 ; republic of,
founded, 175.

Jena, 132, 161, 335, 382.

Jerome Bonaparte, 14, 146, 148,
195 ; character and career of,
228 ff., 231, 292, 308; chosen
King of Westphalia, 228 ; his
Court, 235 ; and ministers, 236 ;
opens the Reichstag, 241 ; defeats
Austrians at Waldheim, 254 ; his
extravagance, 293, 299 ; his mili-
tary policy and ambition, 300-3 ;
his fear of Prussia, 303 ; takes part
in Russian campaign, 304, 306 ;
returns in disgrace, 309.

Jews, treatment of, in Grand-Duchy
of Warsaw, 150, 152 ; Westphalia,
264, 304, 329; Frankfort, 313 if.,
330 ; Fulda, 329 ; Baden and Ba-
varia, 329 ; Rhine departments,
368.

Jollivet, 236, 248, 310, 360.

Joseph Bonaparte, 94, 128, 175,
177.

Kant, 277, 278, 351.

Katte, Friedrich Wilhelm von, 249.

Lagrange, General, 156, 235, 237.

Landstande, or Estates, 19, 53, 56,
63, 99, 101 ; in Hanover, 159, 160;
in Cleves and Berg, 177, 180, 182,
222 ; in Westphalia, 232-3, 234,
240, 288 ; in Frankfort, 324.

Leibnitz, 225, 377.

Leipzig, 209, 331, 380.

Lessing, 3, 62, 226, 351.

Louis, Landgrave of Hesse-Darm-
stadt, 82, 87, 97, 107.

Louis Bonaparte, 94, 128, 177, 181,
194, 310, 335.

Louise, Queen of Prussia, 125, 146.

Lubeck, 43, 61, 335, 337 ff.

Lucchesini, 85.

Luneville, 38-47, 72, 358.

Lutheranism, servility of, 12 ;
rationalism of, 12, 13 ; in Saxony,
134 ; of Prince of Orange, 140 ; in
Hanover, 264 ; in Rhine depart-
ments, 362.

Magdeburg, 146, 226, 230, 231, 237,
249, 253, 306.

Mainz, reforms of Karl Joseph von
Erthal in, 11 ; cession of, to France,
28, 35, 36 ; gathering at, 81, 82 ;
See of, 167 ; Court of, 351 ; the
tricolour in, 352 ; bishopric founded
in, 361 ; consistory created in, 363 ;
schools in, 364 ; commerce of,
370.

Malchus, Karl August, 238, 239,
295.

Marburg, 157, 227, 252, 271, 282-4.

Marengo, 38.

Maximilian Joseph, Elector of Ba-
varia, 96, 97, 166.

Mecklenburg, 42, 128, 146.

Mehee de la Touche, 69, 71, 76, 78.

Melzi, 175.

Metternich, 130, 165.

Military governments, Napoleon's
system of, 155 ff.

Mirabeau, 8 ; remarks on Prussian
clergy, 13 ; and on Charles Ferdi-
nand of Brunswick, 138.

Modena, Prince of, 29.

Moniteur, 71, 74, 76, 92, 178, 282,
283, 310, 368.

Montgelas, Baron von, 17, 77, 95,
167.

Moreau, 68, 70, 71.

INDEX

389

Mortier, General, 50, 54, 55, 56, 60,
136, 155, 160, 335, 336.

Moser, Justus, 23.

Moser, Karl Friedrich von, 15, 16.

Muller, Johann von, 22, 157, 235,
236, 248, 283.

Miinchhausen, von, 51, 160, 240.

Munich, 76 ; Austrians in possession
of, 97, 103 ; Napoleon in, 109 ; rati-
fications of Treaty of the Confedera-
tion of the Rhine exchanged at,
121, 129 ; negotiates for Concordat,
167, 169 ; picture galleries of, 184.

Murat, Prince Joachim, becomes
Grand-Duke of Cleves and Berg,
111, 116, 129 ; joins Rhine league,
118 ; appearance and career of,
173 ff. ; takes possession of his
duchy, 177 ; provokes war with
Prussia, 181 ; his territory in-
creased, 182 ; is summoned to
Bayonne, 187 ; his municipal regu-
lations, 189 ; resigns his duchy,
190.

Napoleon Bonaparte, conquests in
Italy, 24 ; makes Peace of Campo-
Formio, 28 ; travels through
Switzerland, 30, 31 ; arrives at
Rastadt, 31 ; appearance and con-
versation of, 32, 33 ; learns Ger-
many, 32, 46 ; insults Count Fersen,
35 ; signs convention with Austria,

35 ; leaves Rastadt, 35, 37 ; con-
versations with Sandoz Rollin, 35,

36 ; leaves Paris for the East, 37 ;
overthrows Directorate, 38 ; inter-
venes in the aifair of compensa-
tions, 39-47 ; gives counsel to
Bavaria, 40 ; his German policy,
42, 108, 383 ; his northern scheme,
47 ; provokes hostilities with Eng-
land, 49 ; intervenes in Hanover,
50 ; suspends ratification of Con-
vention of Suhlingen, 56 ; rein-
forces Mortier, 57 ; orders Mortier
to disarm Hanoverian army, 57 ;
accepts Convention of the Elbe, 57 ;
policy in Hanover, 61 ; views on
the Hanoverian loan, 63 ; his
suspicions of Hamburg and Bre-
men, 64, 65 ; regards war as essen-
tial to his power, 65, 66 ; deter-
mines to exclude English emissaries
and goods from the continent, 67 ;
intrigues in Ireland, 67 ; instructs
Mehee, 69 ; orders seizure of

d'Enghien, 71 ; and of other
alleged conspirators, 73 ; protests
against Drake, 76 ; orders Drake's
expulsion, 77 ; orders expulsion of
Taylor, 80 ; ambition of, 80 ; tour
in Rhine provinces, 81, 82 ; con-
versations of, at Mainz, 86, 87 ;
discusses a German Concordat, 87 ;
promotes discussion of subversive
schemes in Germany, 88 ; orders
seizure of Rumbold, 88-92 ; pro-
vokes war with Austria, 93-5 ;
forms alliance with South German
powers, 95-103 ; his Germanic Con-
federation scheme, 97, 109, 382 ;
visits Frederick of Wiirtemberg at
Ludwigsburg, 101 ; his official justi-
fication of Austrian campaign, 102 ;
correspondence with Frederick of
Wiirtemberg, 103-6 ; defeats Aus-
trians at Austerlitz, 106, 126 ;
concludes treaties at Brunn and
Pressburg, 107 ; quarrels with the
Pope, 109, 319 ; his dealings with
Dalberg, 109 ff. ; schemes for the
settlement of Germany, 115 ff. ;
enforces continental blockade, 125,
142, 208, 319, 336; treaty with
Prussia at Schonbrunn, 126, 127 ;
offers Hanover to England, 128 ;
becomes master of Prussia by
victories of Jena and Auerstadt,
130 ; takes Saxony under his pro-
tection, 133 ; abolishes Houses of
Hesse-Cassel, Brunswick, and Nas-
sau, 136-41 ; his views on, and
animosity towards, Great Britain,
141, 142 ; his attitude towards
Poland, 143 ; treats with Alexander
on the Niemen, 144 ff. ; signs
Treaties of Tilsit, 145 ; drafts con-
stitution for Grand-Duchy of War-
saw, 149 ; organizes Western Ger-
many, 154 ; his system of military
governments, 155 ; his views on
Diet for Rhine Confederacy, 164 ;
his opinion of Dalberg, 165 ; inter-
venes with the Curia for Bavarian
Concordat, 167 ; writes to the Pope,
169 ; marries his sister Caroline to
Murat, 174 ; decrees the Duchies
of Cleves and Berg to Murat, 176 ;
instructs Murat on organization,
179, 180 ; reproves his avidity, after
Treaty of Bayonne, 190 ; makes
his nephew, Prince Napoleon Louis,
Grand-Duke of Berg, 194 ; visits

390

INDEX

Berg (1811), 194, 220; receives
petition from peasants of Berg,
204 ; introduces French methods
of administration in Berg, 221 ;
appoints Roederer to correspond
with Beugnot, 221 ; makes Jerome
King of Westphalia, 228 ; receives
Westphalian deputation, 229 ; his
views on religion, 229 ; advises
Jerome on constitution of West-
phalia, 234, 236, 295; converts
Johann von Miiller, 235 ; criticizes
Jerome, 295, 299 ; ruins West-
phalia by his financial and military-
policy, 295 fF. ; writes to Jerome
on military organization, 301 ; his
reception in Frankfort, 314 ;
nominates Eugene to the succes-
sion of Frankfort, 319 ; his last
visit to Frankfort, 332 ; his treat-
ment of Hamburg, 337 ; threatens
to vanquish England, 345 ; an-
nexes the Rhine departments, 358 ;
settles territorial dues at Mainz,
368 ; legislates for the Jews, 368 ;
his marriage with Marie Louise,
372 ; visits the Rhine provinces,
372 ; his realism, 374 ; and moral
ideals, 375 ; the merits and defects
of his system, 378 ; and its results,
378 fF. ; his influence on the politi-
cal structure of Germany, 381.

Nassau, 136, 154, 162, 181, 185:
and see William Frederick, Prince
of Orange .

Nimeguen, 50.

Orange : see William Frederick.
Otto, 95-7.

Pichegru, 68, 70 ff.

Piedmont, annexation of, 49.

Poland, French army in, 142 ; Grand-
Duchy of Warsaw created in, 147 ff. ;
condition of, in 1807, 152.

Posen, Treaty of, 133, 134 ; Duchy
of, 381.

Press, censorship of, 17, 18 ; in
Warsaw, 154; Berg, 223; Hamburg,
346 ; the Rhineland, 361.

Pressburg, Treaty of, 107, 109.

Prussia, unwise legislation in, 21 ;
reaction in, 24 ; territories on left
bank of Rhine, 27 ; makes treaty
with France, 29 ; promised in-
demnity, 30 ; jealousy of Austria,
39 ; indemnity of, 44 ; occupies

Hanover in 1801, 49 ; fails to pre-
vent French occupation of Hanover
in 1803,51 ; acquiesces in d'Enghien
affair, 75 ; King of, protests against
seizure of Rumbold, 91 ; condition
of, in 1806, 124 ; war with France,
124 ff. ; alliance with Russia, 125 ;
receives Hanover by Treaty of
Schonbrunn, 127 ; army defeated at
Jena and Auerstadt, 130 ; humilia-
tion and losses of, by Treaty of
Tilsit, 145, 146 ; deprived of Cleves,
176 ; loses territory to Murat, 182,
183 ; agrarian legislation in, 380 ;
acquires territory in 1815, 381.

Prussia, King of: see Frederick
William.

Prussia, Queen of : see Louise.

Rapp, General, 343.

Rastadt, 27-37 ; French troops in,
101.

Ratisbon, Diet of, 6 ; prohibits
students' associations, 24 ; repre-
sented at Rastadt, 31 ; discusses com-
pensations, 39 ; change of balance of
power in, 43 ; declares itself neutral,
103 ; period of suspense in, 110 ;
consents to the abolition of the
Empire, 123; negotiates for Con-
cordat, 168.

Ratisbon, town of, 85, 109, 112 ;
Dalberg, Archbishop of, 113 ; ceded
to Bavaria, 318.

Regnier, 69, 72, 76, 77, 80.

Reich, Baroness von, 72, 73.

Reinhard, 65, 234, 239, 244, 250,
297, 308, 310, 340.

Remscheid, 185, 206 ff.

Rhine frontier, conquest of, by
France, 24, 26, 382; ceded at
Campo-Formio, 28 ; ceded at Lune-
ville, 38, 86.

Rhine provinces, alleged conspiracy
in, 79 ; ecclesiastical principalities
in, 351 ; influence of French Re-
volution and French government
on, 352; departments organized
in, 354 ; views of Gorres on, 357
360 ; union of, with France, 358
send deputation to Napoleon, 358
van Alpen's description of, 359
condition of, under Napoleonic
regime, 361 ff. ; primary education
in, 365 ; French codes introduced
in, 366 ff. ; development of, hindered
by continental blockade,370; French

INDEX

391

customs line abolished, 371 ; con-
scription in, 372.

Roederer, 192, 208, 213, 221.

Rosey, Captain, 78.

Rousseau, influence of, 279.

Rudler, 354, 357, 360.

Rumbold, Sir George, 88-92, 125.

Russia, mediation of, 40-2 ; alliance
with Prussia, 125 ; defeat of, at
Friedland, 144 ; signs Treaty of
Tilsit, 145 ; war with Napoleon
(1812), 307, 308, 348.

Russia, Emperor of : see Alexander.

Sailer, 9.

Salzburg, 28, 107.

Savary, 70.

Saxony, treatment of, by Napoleon
after Jena, 133 ; joins Rhenish Con-
federacy, 133, 145, 162 ; Lutheran-
ism in, 134 ; education in, 278.

Saxony, Elector of : see Frederick
Augustus.

Schill, Major, 252.

Schiller, 3, 351.

Schlozer, 18, 20.

Schonbrunn, Treaty of, 126,127,177.

Secularization, idea of, 8, 29, 35, 37,
39, 85, 139, 168, 298, 366.

Semler, Johann, 12.

Serfs, liberation of, in Austria and
Baden, 23 ; views of Goethe and
Moser on, 23 ; in Osnabriick, 53 ;
liberation of, in the Grand-Duchy of
Warsaw, 149 ; in Berg, 183, 201 ff. ;
in Westphalia, 230, 232 ; in Frank-
fort, 330.

Silesia, 145, 147.

Simeon, 234, 238, 242, 243, 256, 260,
270, 275.

Smith, Adam, 20.

Spain, war with, 187, 193.

Spencer-Smith, 76, 78.

Stein, 380.

Strombeck, von, 260 fF., 292.

Students' clubs prohibited by Diet, 24.

Stuttgart, 76, 100, 121, 169.

Siissmilch, 20.

Swabian League, prospect of, 47.

Sweden, claims to take part in Con-
gress of Rastadt, 34.

Sweden, King of : see Gustavus IV.

Switzerland, Napoleon in, 31 ; act
of mediation, 49.

Talleyrand, settles German indemni-
ties, 41 ; receives bribes, 62, 117 ;

demands expulsion of emigre's from
Baden, 72 ; demands Bavarian
alliance, 95 ; continental policy of,
108 ; devises schemes for settlement
of Germany, 116 fF. ; his views on
constitution of Rhenish Confeder-
acy, 164 ; his scheme for Bavarian
Concordat, 167 ; is appealed to by
Murat, 178, 181.

Taylor, 76, 78, 80.

Teschen, Treaty of, 40.

Tilsit/Treaties of, 145, 161, 169, 191,
226.

Ulm, 103.

Universities, control of, 24 ; in Berg,
1 95, 210 ; their place in the national
life, 275 ; in Westphalia, 282 fF. ;
in AschafFenburg, 329 ; in Hanseatic
towns, 347 ; in Rhine departments,
364.

Venice, spoliation of, 27 ; in Talley-
rand's scheme, 108.

Verden, 54.

Vienna, Peace of, 248 ; Congress of,
372, 381.

Villers, Charles de, 2, 4, 5, 227.

Wagram, 249, 254, 303.

Wallmoden, Johann Ludwig von, 55.

Warsaw, Grand-Duchy of, 145, 147 ;
offered to King of Saxony, 148,
153 ; Napoleon's constitution of,
149-51 ; fiscal affairs in, 153 ;
wretched condition of Poles in, 154 ;
military governments in, 154.

Wesel, 128, 179, 182, 190.

Westphalia, King of: see Jerome
Bonaparte.

Westphalia, kingdom of, 146, 155,
189, 199, 202, 224 fF. ; constitution
of, 231 fF. ; German officials in,
240, 248 ; parliament of, 243, 294 ;
military affairs in, 248, 300 ; revolts
and conspiracies in, 249 fF. ; feudal-
ism abolished in, 256 fF. ; French
codes in, 259; religious toleration
in, 264 ; conscription in, 264, 300 ;
position of the Church in, 265 fF. ;
poor relief and charities in, 267 fF. ;
local government in, 269 ; vaccina-
tion in, 274 ; the f high police,'
274 ; educational problems in, 278 fF. ;
fine arts in, 287 ; fiscal afFairs of,
289 fF. ; ruined byNapoleon's financial

392

INDEX

policy, 295 ; Hanover ceded to, and

withdrawn from, 299 ; hatred of

the French in, 307 ; final collapse

of, 308-10.
Wetzlar, imperial Chamber of, 7 ;

town of, 43, 83 ; enclave of, 317,

318 ; courts of law in, 327 ; law

school in, 329.
Wieland, 23.
William VIII, Landgrave and Elector

of Hesse-Cassel, 134, 135, 227, 252,

254.
William Frederick, Prince of Orange,

28, 29, 44, 128, 136, 139.

Wolfenbuttel, library of, 225.

Wolffradt, 239, 247, 248, 292.

Wiirtemberg, flattered by Napoleon,
32 ; Napoleon's policy of strengthen-
ing, 42, 44 ; enlargement of, 45 ;
subjection to France, 78 ; pillaged
by the French, 102 ; indemnities
of, 107, 108 ; gains of, by Treaty
of Pressburg, 108, 168 ; objects to
French protectorate, 121.

Wiirtemberg, Duke of : see Frederick
of Wiirtemberg.

Zurich, victory of, 38.

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